Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries on Friday reported a 43 per cent jump in its September quarter net profit as its businesses from oil to retail fired on all cylinders, growing both sequentially and on a year-on-year basis. Net profit of Rs 13,680 crore, or Rs 20.88 per share, in July-September compared with Rs 9,567 crore, or Rs 14.84 a share, in the same period a year back, the company said in a statement. While better realisation and a sharp rise in crude oil prices benefited the old-economy business, retail saw footfalls at stores reach pre-Covid levels and per user earning from telecom business rose.
While the government had in June approved a new formula for pricing of all domestically produced natural gas, the Cabinet yesterday allowed the same principles to also be applied to Reliance Industries' currently producing fields in KG-D6 block subject to certain conditions.
ONGC and RIL bill their consumers like fertiliser plants and power stations in US dollar.
India has seen rapid progress in various big-budget infrastructure projects.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 22.5 per cent rise in net profit for the quarter ended March on the back of bumper oil refining margins, steady growth in telecom and digital services and strong momentum in the retail business. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate's consolidated net profit rose to Rs 16,203 crore in the quarter ended March 31, 2022 from Rs 13,227 crore, the firm said in a statement. Net profit, however, fell 12.6 per cent sequentially -- breaking a six-quarter chain of quarter-on-quarter improvement.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has written to the Oil Ministry seeking appointment of an international expert to assess if Reliance Industries Ltd was drawing out any of its gas in KG basin.
The five discoveries -- D4, D7, D8, D16 and D23 - hold 0.805 trillion cubic feet of reserves, or about one-fourth of the restated reserves in the currently producing Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) fields in KG-D6 block, and are worth $10 billion.
RIL is keen to hike gas price from April 2014 but due to some technical glitches, it may not be able to pass on burden of high production cost to customers.
Reliance Industries on Friday reported a 41.5 per cent jump in its third quarter net profit as oil, retail and telecom businesses fired on all cylinders. Net profit of Rs 18,549 crore in October-December compared with Rs 13,101 crore a year back, the company said in a stock exchange filing. Income from operations rose to Rs 1.91 lakh crore from Rs 1.28 lakh crore.
Reliance Industries on Friday hit out at Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) for suing it over KG gas dispute, saying some elements in the state-owned firm may be "misleading" the chairman D K Sarraf to hide their failure in developing the discoveries made over 13 years.
With CAG alleging that Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries was delaying furnishing of records for audit, Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily on Friday said there was no problem and "everybody" was cooperating.
Concerns on lower natural gas transmission, LPG rate cut & APM gas price hike might be priced in but no positive triggers
A week after doubling of natural gas prices was approved, the Oil Ministry on Friday rebutted charges of the move resulting in windfall gains to Reliance Industries, saying new gas production from the company's fields will not start before 2017-18.
RIL is peeved with the govt for blocking of approvals and non-revision of gas price produced from its underperforming KG-D6 block.
Fitch Ratings on Tuesday said a higher natural gas price will help improve Reliance Industries' profitability in 2014-15 fiscal and would lead it to invest more in raising production.
Over the next five years, plans to pump money in KG DG, refining, petrochemical sectors, retail and telecom.
Government has put on auction the gas discovery area it snatched from Reliance Industries in KG-D6 block and the field that Cairn India is seeking to regain around its Rajasthan block.
The bank guarantee, which will be equivalent to the incremental revenue that RIL will get from the new gas price, will be encashed if it is proved that the company hoarded gas or deliberately suppressed production at the main D1&D3 fields in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block since 2010-11.
According to a source close to the development, the government is set to come out with a notification in this regard by the end of this week.
Dudley and Ambani, assisted by BP India head Sashi Mukundan and RIL Executive Director P M S Prasad, primarily discussed RIL-BP's oil and gas investments at the meeting that lasted nearly one-and-half hour.
RIL also reported measures taken to check falling output in the KG-D6 field.
We will now get CAG to do the audit for the last 3-4 years, says the secretary.
The Ministry refused to buy RGTIL's argument that the government has already allocated all of the projected 91 mmscmd gas output from the KG-D6 fields to customers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharasthra and other northern states, leaving no gas for transportation through its proposed pipelines from Kakinada to Howrah, Chennai, Tuticorin and Mangalore.
RIL stated on Saturday that it had never contested the government's right to get spendings on the flagging KG-D6 gas fields audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India but added that the consent must not lead to a performance audit of a private firm.
IAC activist Arvind Kejrival yesterday claimed that Jaipal Reddy was shunted out of petroleum ministry due to his opposition to gas price revision.
The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons wants the government to get a share of the $0.135 per million British thermal units marketing margin RIL charges over and above the government approved gas price of $4.205, sources privy to the development said.
Defence Ministry has declared 7 blocks including RIL's KG-D6 which has been in production since September 2008 and its gas discovery block NEC-25 for reasons like overlapping with proposed Naval base or being close to missile launching and Air Force exercise area.
The project is currently generating 240 MW against its total capacity of 1,967 MW.
Based on the panel's formula, the base price of domestic natural gas comes to around $7.4 per million British thermal unit (mBtu), but the pricing formula proposed by RIL, officials say, translates the price into $13-14 an mBtu.
RIL had drawn 58.67 bcm from the wells up to March 31, 2015.
Reliance Industries has opposed a move to make marketing margin charged by it and other sellers of domestically produced natural gas uniform, while giving gasimporters a free hand, saying that it would be a gross discrimination.
RIL gets $4.2 per million British thermal unit for the gas produced from its KG-D6 fields in the Bay of Bengal.
It executive director, PMS Prasad said that the company is only seeking clarity from government on rates for further investments decisions.
It was agreed at the meeting to recommend to the competent authority on two issues namely the Declaration of Commerciality of certain wells in the NEC 25 and KG D6.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp is in talks to hire Reliance Industries' unutilised production facilities on the east to quickly bring to production its gas finds in the Krishna Godavari basin.
BSE Consumer Durable and Oil & Gas indices surged by nearly 3% each followed by counters like Metal, TECk, Power, Healthcare, Banks, Realty and IT, all gaining between 1-2% each.
RIL wants to drill an exploration well on the D1&D3 gas fields in the KG-D6 block, Cairn on the Rajasthan block.
Reliance Industries' eastern offshore KG-D6 gas field has seen output drop to 29 million units a day, against a planned 80 million units, causing acute shortage in power generation, Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy said on Tuesday.
If the EC decides to put on hold a gas price revision for RIL, it would set a precedent for pricing decisions of the government and policy decisions taken but undergoing procedural delays.
The government on Thursday hiked by 62 per cent the price of natural gas that is used to produce electricity, make fertilisers and turned into CNG to use as fuel in automobiles and cooking gas for household kitchens. This is the first increase in rates since April 2019 and comes on back of firming benchmark international prices but does not reflect the spurt in spot or current price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) witnessed during the last couple of weeks. The oil ministry's Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) said the rates paid for gas produced from fields given to state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) will be $2.90 per million British thermal unit for the six-month period beginning April 1.