Reliance Industries’ net profit for the third quarter ended December 2012 grew 23.9 per cent from the year-ago period on the back of higher Gross Refining Margins (GRMs) and improved petroleum margins.
The company posted a net profit of Rs 5,502 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2012, against Rs 4,440 crore in the year-ago period.
In its refinery and marketing business, GRMs for the quarter ended December 2012 stood at $9.6 per barrel against $9.5 per barrel in the previous quarter.
GRM is the differential between cost of a barrel of crude oil and the price at which its process output can be sold.
For the third quarter, net sales increased 10.27 per cent to Rs 93,886 crore, while in the year-ago quarter it was Rs 85,135 crore.
Other income was also marginally up by 1.3 per cent in the period to Rs 1,740 crore on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, though it was lower compared with Rs 2,112 crore reported in the previous quarter ended September 2012.
Significantly, the oil and gas giant reported cash and cash equivalents of Rs 80,962 crore in its books in this period.
“The results indicate that the company has grown overall and not just in the other income segment. While the company did report huge cash balances before as well, the timing of this, with the overall positive uptick in the economy and the Sensex and Nifty would be a huge positive for the company.
“This will give it enough ammunition to go ahead with its plans to fund both organic and inorganic growth and expansion possibilities,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, Strategist, SMC Global Securities.
“RIL’s performance has improved in this quarter with margin expansion in petrochemicals and record earnings in the refining business. We are investing over Rs 100,000 crore by expanding our petrochemical capacities and adding value to our refining business,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, in a statement.
Crude oil output
Domestic production from its controversy ridden KG-D6 block stood at 2.3 million barrels of crude oil in the nine months of this fiscal, a reduction of 40 per cent on a y-o-y basis.
Similarly, the gas output from the basin stood at 275 billion cubic feet of natural gas in the nine months of this fiscal.
“This is a reduction of 37 per cent on a y-o-y basis.
“The company continued to attribute the decline in production to “reservoir complexity and natural decline in addition to the shutdown effect in MA field on account of FPSO (floating production storage and offloading vessel) maintenance for a period of six days.”
The scrip of Reliance Industries closed at Rs 898, up 0.90 per cent on the NSE.