Gujarat Gas zooms 17% in weak market on strong Q1 results

On the NNSE, the stock was trading close to its 52-week high level of Rs 194 touched on June 3, 2019

Shares of Gujarat Gas zoomed 17 per cent to Rs 192 in Wednesday's early morning trade on the BSE in an otherwise weak market after the company reported a strong 92 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 234 crore in June 2019 quarter (Q1FY19) on the back of healthy volume growth. The integrated oil & gas Company had registered a profit of Rs 122 crore in the same quarter of last fiscal.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the stock rallied 12 per cent to Rs 183 in early morning trade. It was trading close to its 52-week high level of Rs 194 touched on June 3, 2019. In comparison, the benchmark indices – S&P BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 index -- were down 1 per cent each.

The company's operational revenues during the quarter rose 47 per cent at Rs 2,671 crore against Rs 1,814 crore in the corresponding quarter of previous fiscal.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) margin jumped sharply to Rs 5.6/scm against reported in Q4FY19) due to decline in opex to Rs 2.4/scm on account of operating leverage (given the sharp jump in volume), analysts at SBICAP Securities said in result review.

Industrial sales volume was up 57 per cent year on year and 68 per cent quarter on quarter to 644mmscm (or 7.1mmscmd); this was 24 per cent higher than our expectation due to higher-than-expected gains post NGT’s 6 Mar’19 order to ban the use of coal-based gasifiers in Morbi, the brokerage firm said with upgrade rating on the stock to ‘buy’ and target price of Rs 205 per share.

At 09:32 am, Gujarat Gas was trading 8 per cent higher at Rs 176 on the BSE. The trading volumes on the counter surged more than 10-fold with a combined 1.2 million shares changing hands on the NSE and BSE so far.