Reliance Industries (RIL), the largest private oil refiner in India, has posted a 7.4 per cent rise in profit at Rs 4,122 crore in the second quarter as the price of petroleum products shot up globally in line with crude oil prices.
During the quarter, RIL’s revenue from sale of refined petroleum products was up by 54 per cent at Rs 36,393 crore when the crude oil price was hovering around $100 a barrel. The revenue from exports has surged 51 per cent at Rs 29,823 crore. The company exports products mainly to the US, Europe and West Asia after its stopped sales in the domestic market.
The company, controlled by Mukesh Ambani, has registered a 38 per cent rise in net sales at Rs 46,113 crore, partly helped by a 19.9 per cent and a 56 per cent growth in revenue from petrochemicals and oil and gas segments, respectively. The net turnover has jumped 39.7 per cent to Rs 44,787 crore.
For the business expansion, mainly for the production of gas and oil from Krishna-Godavari basin, the company spent Rs 11,401 crore in the first six months of the fiscal, RIL said in statement.
“It has been an exciting quarter at Reliance Industries. We have started production of oil from the KG basin and soon will emerge as key hydrocarbons major. At Reliance, we are at the final leg of capital expenditure in our key businesses and will see cash flows from these investments in the following quarters. Leading economies across the globe are passing through some unprecedented times. Our businesses are gearing up to meet these emerging challenges,” said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of RIL.
Beating market expectations, the company’s gross refining margin (GRM) stood at $13.4 a barrel, a premium of $7.4 a barrel over Singapore benchmark. It is well above the benchmark Asian Dubai crack margin, which averaged about $5.8 a barrel in the period.
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Analysts tracking oil companies had predicted earlier that RIL, which controls around 22 per cent of India's refining capacity, too would report refining margins of less than $13 per barrel during the quarter, compared with over $15 per barrel in the June quarter. Motilal Oswal in its recent report predicted that the GRM would be around $13 a barrel.
Expenditure shot up 44.4 per cent to Rs 39,577 crore with the price rise of crude, the major raw material for RIL’s Jamnagar refinery, which contributes about 65 per cent of its revenues. The raw material cost stood at Rs 34,978 crore, up 60 per cent. The depreciation of assets and purchases of chemicals and catalysts in the quarter cost about Rs 2,401 crore.
The Jamanagar refinery has processed 8.21 million tonne of crude during the second quarter, while the company’s petrochemicals production remained flat.