Corporate giant Reliance Industries (RIL) today reported a 28.14 per cent rise in its third-quarter net profit at Rs 5,136 crore, helped by robust performance in its refining and petrochemicals businesses.
The turnover rose by about 6 per cent to Rs 62,399 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2010, from Rs 58,848 crore in the year-ago period.
Commenting on the results, RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said: "Reliance had another record quarter as both refining and petrochemical margins continued to improve and certain products recorded historic levels."
"Robust demand growth in home markets and highly competitive assets enabled Reliance to have industry leading operating rates and margins," he added.
The company said in a statement that its turnover for the nine-month period ended December 31, 2010 rose by 31 per cent to Rs 183,368 crore, with higher sales volumes and increased prices each accounting over 15 per cent of revenue growth.
Exports for the nine-month period rose by 29.2 per cent to Rs 1,00,995 crore.
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RIL shares today ended the day with a gain of 1.73 per cent at Rs 986.50 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
While the results were announced after the market close, analysts said that the shares appreciated in expectations of a good set of results.
Commenting on other businesses, RIL said that its subsidiary Reliance Retail continued to expand presence of its specialty formats, as well as its various joint ventures, during the quarter.
Reliance Retail is operating over 1,000 stores of various formats in 14 states and more than 85 cities in India serving over 2.5 million customers every week.
About the telecom business, RIL said its subsidiary Infotel Broadband Services is in the process of finalising the arrangement with leading global technology players, service providers, infrastructure providers, application developers, device manufacturers and others to leapfrog India to the 4G revolution.
Infotel has emerged as a successful bidder in all the 22 circles of the auction for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) Spectrum conducted by the government.
The robust profit growth came despite a significant increase in staff costs and overall expenditure.
Total expenditure rose to Rs 53,603 crore in the latest quarter, from Rs 51,807 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2009. The staff cost rose to Rs 661 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2010, from Rs 576 crore in the year-ago period.
RIL attributed the higher expenses to increased benefits to employees, higher selling expenses on additional volumes, royalty on higher oil and gas production, higher shutdown expenses and foreign exchange difference.
The company had an outstanding debt of Rs 70,209 crore as on December 31, 2010, up from Rs 62,495 crore a year ago.
At the same time, it had cash and cash equivalents of Rs 31,829 crore, kept in fixed deposits, certificate of deposits with banks, mutual funds and the government securities/bonds.
In oil and gas (exploration and production) business, higher oil, gas and condensate production from KG D6 block drove the segment revenue growth. However, this revenue growth was partly offset by lower production from Panna-Mukta and Tapti fields.
As per the government's gas utilisation policy, RIL has executed and made operational agreements for KG-D6 gas with 57 customers in the fertilisers, power, city gas distribution, steel, LPG, refinery and petrochemical sectors.
The company said that it was the best quarter ever for petrochemicals segment with respect to production, revenue and earnings.
During the last quarter, average refinery utilisation rates were lower in North America and Europe in line with seasonal trend, which was further amplified by peak seasonal maintenance and refinery strikes in France in October 2010.
Asian refineries operated at higher rates on the back of strong demand growth which also resulted in stronger cracks particularly for distillates.
However, the nine-month revenue for the refining and marketing segment increased by 36.4 per cent from Rs 1,11,999 crore to Rs 1,52,727 crore.