Journalism of Courage
Reliance Industries (RIL) on Friday posted a 18.9 per cent year-on-year jump in its first quarter net profit at Rs 5,352 crore,on the back of stronger margins in its oil refining and petrochemicals businesses and a rise of 33 per cent in its other income.
However,on a quarter-on-quarter basis,the profits dipped by 4.2 per cent over the quarter ended March 2013 when it had registered a net of Rs 5,589 crore.
Robust growth in petrochemical products demand augurs well for our biggest-ever expansion programme. Retail business continues to make remarkable progress and registered a 53 per cent growth in revenues during the first quarter, said Mukesh Ambani,chairman and managing director,Reliance Industries.
The firms key performance metric,gross refining margin (difference between cost of processing crude and revenue from selling finished petroleum products) improved from $7.6/bbl a year ago to $8.4/bbl in the quarter ended June 2013.
It was also higher by $1.8/bbl compared to the Singapore GRM of $6.4/bbl.
Indicating that it will continue with its investment to augment production at the KG-D6 basin,the company informed that it has received approvals for capital expenditure amounting to $1.2 billion in 2013-14 from the government.
The government has recently revised the formula to estimate natural gas prices that will come into effect from April 2014.
Reliance Industries had claimed that unless prices were revised it would not be able to invest money to prospect for more gas at the basin.
The company also informed investors that its shale gas production has almost equalled domestic gas production. From its 500 wells (of the 5,000 it has invested in) that are currently operational the company made an Ebitda of $165 million during the quarter. Reliance Industries share price rose 0.67 per cent on Friday to close at Rs 923.15.
The companys net income from operations has dropped by 4.6 per cent at Rs 87,645 crore for the quarter ended June 30,2013 as against Rs 91,876 crore in the corresponding period last year on account of dip in volumes by 3.4 per cent and dip in prices by 1.2 per cent.
Other incomes for the company rose from Rs 1,904 crore in the quarter ended June 2012 to Rs 2,535 crore in June 2013 on account of sale of investments in fixed income and higher average liquid investments.
While Reliance Industries saw its cash and cash equivalents rise to Rs 93,066 crore ($15.7 billion),its outstanding debt rose from Rs 72,427 crore to Rs 80,307 crore. During the quarter,the rise in debt of Rs 5,300 crore was on account of the foreign exchange changes on the long-term basis, said Alok Agarwal,chief financial officer of Reliance Industries.
Reliance Retail,the retail arm of the company too witnessed a strong growth in the first quarter and its turnover rose by 53 per cent on a year-on-year basis from Rs 2,269 crore to Rs 3,474 crore. It also witnessed a PBDIT of Rs 70 crore in the quarter.
