GAIL (India) Ltd on Wednesday posted a 34 per cent sequential growth in consolidated net profit for the March quarter at ₹2,535 crore. However, profit for the quarter was 47 per cent lower on a year-on-year basis.

For the financial year 2021, GAIL’s profit fell 35 per cent to ₹9,515 crore. Annual revenue during 2020-21 also fell 21 per cent to ₹58,549 crore, the firm said in a statement.

GAIL has sent a proposal for the asset monetisation of two of its pipelines to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas for approval by the Cabinet, CMD Manoj Jain said during a press conference. While he refused to identify which pipelines have been chosen, Jain said that the capital expenditure on these two projects were around ₹5,000 crore.

Capital spending

The Centre’s plan to unbundle GAIL’s marketing and transmission businesses into two separate units has taken a backseat as the firm moves towards the monetisation of pipeline assets through an Infrastructure Investment Trust, Jain added. “It appears that we are going pipeline-wise rather than the whole segment,” he said. During 2020-21, most of GAIL’s ₹6,982-capital spending was on pipelines.

GAIL has set a positive price outlook for the ongoing fiscal, seeing international crude prices holding at or above $60 per barrel, Jain said, adding that the company expects a 6-8 per cent growth in LNG demand for the year. “If we are out of the Covid disruption now, then this is possible,” he said.

Covid impact

The impact of the second wave of Covid-19 during April and May was a fraction as compared to the initial impact, Jain added. “We saw a 10-15 per cent dip this year. Last year, we had seen a 50 per cent dip during this period,” he said.

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