India's largest gas utility corporation, GAIL (India) Ltd, on Thursday logged a 51 per cent rise in its June quarter (Q1) net profit on the back of bumper margins from gas marketing, the PTI reported.
GAIL posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 3,250 crore (Rs 7.34 per share) in April-June compared to Rs 2,157 crore (Rs 4.81 a share) net profit in the same period a year ago, the firm said in a regulatory filing. The profit, sequentially, was lower than Rs 3,473.77 crore net earnings in the January-March quarter of the last fiscal year.
GAIL reported a pre-tax profit of Rs 2,317 crore from natural gas marketing in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, as compared to Rs 449 crore pre-tax profit a year ago and Rs 1,976 crore in the preceding quarter.
The margin on gas marketing made up for a 12.5 per cent decline in earnings from the gas transportation business and a 74 per cent drop in petrochemicals earnings. Turnover more than doubled to Rs 38,033 crore in the April-June quarter, from Rs 17,702 crore a year ago, the filing showed.
GAIL said the earnings per share have been adjusted on account of a buyback of 1.28 per cent shares by the company.
Last month, the board of directors of the company had recommended the issue of one bonus share for two existing equity shares.
GAIL said its standalone net profit rose 91 per cent to Rs 2,915 crore in Q1 FY23 (April 2022 to March 2023 fiscal) as against Rs 1,530 crore in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal year. "The positive results were mainly on account of increased gas marketing and transmission volumes, better marketing spread and higher product prices," the company said.
Manoj Jain, chairman and managing director, GAIL, said the company has successfully registered a healthy growth in the overall performance despite turbulent times in the gas business.
GAIL has incurred a capital expenditure of about Rs 1,975 crore during the quarter mainly on pipelines, petrochemicals and equity contribution to joint ventures, he said.
The gas utility firm has commissioned the 533-km Bokaro (in Jharkhand) to Angul (in Odisha) pipeline section of the Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra natural gas pipeline (JHBDPL) during the quarter. With this, 1,642 kilometres of JHBDPL, popularly known as Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga, has been commissioned, while the remaining sections are expected to be completed by June 2023, Jain said. The pipeline travels from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal with spur lines to Jharkhand and Odisha.
He added that to provide a thrust to the government's focused initiatives to increase the share of natural gas in the primary energy basket, the company has approved the setting up of a Small Scale LNG (SSLNG) plant on a pilot basis and orders for two small-scale liquefaction skids has been placed.