RIL Q3 net profit rises 39 percent, beats foreccast

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd posted a 39 percent rise in third-quarter net profit, beating analysts' estimates, bolstered by stronger margins in its core refining business.

Consolidated net profit rose to 72.90 billion rupees ($1.08 billion) for the three months to Dec. 31 from 52.56 billion rupees a year earlier, Reliance, controlled by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of 70.33 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Reliance said its gross refining margin, or profit earned on each barrel of crude processed - a key profitability gauge for a refiner - was $11.5 per barrel for the quarter, its highest in seven years.

 

($1 = 67.6300 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee and Devidutta Tripathy; Writing by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Anand Basu)