 "Petronet LNG Q2FY25 results: Net profit rises 1.73% to Rs 870 crore")
India’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer, Petronet LNG, registered a marginal 1.73 per cent year-on-year rise in consolidated profit at Rs 870.6 crore for the second quarter (July–September) of FY25, up from Rs 855.74 crore in Q2 FY24. On a sequential basis, profit was 21.2 per cent lower than the Rs 1,105.47 crore registered in the preceding quarter.
The state-run company's revenue from operations for the quarter stood at Rs 13,024.29 crore, 3.92 per cent higher than the Rs 12,532 crore registered in the same quarter of the previous financial year, the company said in its filing to exchanges. The company's board declared an interim dividend of Rs 7 for every equity share of Rs 10 face value for the financial year 2024–25.
Petronet's Dahej LNG terminal remains the largest single-location LNG storage and regasification terminal in the country, seeing 7 per cent growth in throughput year-on-year. The terminal witnessed an average capacity utilisation of 104 per cent in the first two quarters of the current year. It processed 225 trillion British thermal units (tBtu) of LNG in Q2, as against 210 tBtu in the corresponding period of FY24.
Petronet LNG recorded its highest-ever half-yearly volume throughput in the first six months of FY25 at 501 tBtu.
The terminal has the lowest tariffs in the country, and its 5-million-tonne capacity expansion with two new tanks is expected to be completed by the end of the financial year, Petronet LNG Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Akshay Kumar Singh said in a post-result call on Tuesday.
The company is also working on supplying two natural gas-based power plants in Sri Lanka. Petronet LNG will supply gas from its Kochi terminal to an existing gas-based power plant, which is dual-fuel-powered, Singh said. Sri Lanka is in the process of converting its diesel-based power plants to LNG.
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The company's upcoming terminal at Gopalpur port in Ganjam District, Odisha, will be connected to a major pipeline and the national gas grid before completion. However, the company needs about 80 hectares more land, for which the state government has promised a parcel, Singh said. Currently under construction with a capital expenditure of Rs 2,300 crore, Gopalpur will be the company’s first terminal on the eastern coast. The expected timeline for commissioning is now three years later, in 2027, Singh said.
While the evacuation of gas has remained a major problem for the terminal at Kochi, utilisation levels are set to rise, the management believes. Two consumers, including Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited, have started drawing gas. Utilisation levels are expected to rise as a result of this and the terminal being connected to the main Mangalore pipeline.
With the rates for spot deals and long-term deals currently being neck and neck, LNG consumption volumes are set to increase next year, Singh said.