GAIL India's second quarter (Q2FY25) performance met expectations.
'The universe of PSU stocks is huge and diverse.' 'Investors should bet on specific sectors and stocks from the basket as most of them may continue to consolidate after years of outperformance.'
Chinese import tariffs have unwittingly come to India's assistance to help boost imports of US liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) at rates cheaper than what it pays for supplies from West Asia, according to industry sources and shipping data.
With India making it clear that the US doesn't have enough spare capacity for crude oil, Washington, DC, now wants India to sign fixed-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts with American producers, multiple sources in the know said.
Buying stocks during a dip, says Amar Nandu, research analyst, Samco Securities, can lead to higher compounding returns when the uptrend begins.
The government has slashed by up to a fifth the supplies of cheaper gas to city gas entities that retail CNG to automobiles, increasing their dependence in costly imported fuel. Buying costly imported gas to make up for the shortfall should result in a hike in CNG price but given the ensuing assembly elections in Maharashtra, that may be put off for now. Indraprastha Gas Ltd and Mahanagar Gas Ltd in regulatory filings stated that supplies of domestically produced gas, which was available at a capped rate which is half of the imported price, has been cut.
The government has slashed by up to 20 per cent the supplies of cheaper domestically produced natural gas to city retailers -- a move that may result in Rs 4-6 per kg hike in the price of CNG sold to automobiles, unless excise duty on the fuel is cut, sources said. Natural gas pumped from below the ground and from under the seabed from sites ranging from the Arabian Sea to Bay of Bengal within India is the raw material that is turned into CNG for sale to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households.
Net profit for the quarter was Rs 984 crore (Rs 9.84 billion), 10 per cent lower than Rs 1,094 crore (Rs 10.94 billion) in the same period last fiscal, GAIL chairman and managing director B C Tripathi told reporters in New Delhi.
The four city gas projects in Meerut, Dewas, Sonipat and Kota were awarded to the company in June last year.
'Those betting against PSUs will likely be punished in this upswing.'
While most analysts are expecting poor results from oil marketing companies (OMCs) in the first quarter of 2024-25 (Q1FY25) and even in the first half (H1) of FY25, GAIL (India) could be an outlier. Upstream producers, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India (OIL) could do well due to strong crude and gas prices, but refiners are likely to see weak margins and the impact of frozen prices during the election period will also be negative.
Reliance gets $4.215 per mmBtu for the gas it produces from KG-D6 fields off the Andhra coast. The price is fixed for the first five years of production. KG-D6 gas production began on April 2 and is slated to rise to 80 mmscmd by year-end, nearly doubling the nation's gas output.
Operating margins have been the primary driver of corporate earnings in India in recent quarters, despite revenue growth suffering from weak consumer demand. Companies across sectors have reported a sharp improvement in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margins over the past two years, benefiting from lower commodity and energy prices. Higher margins more than compensated for slower revenue growth, resulting in double-digit growth in net profit for five consecutive quarters.
The slowdown in corporate revenue growth over the last one year has begun to reflect in India Inc's capital expenditure, or capex. The country's top listed companies are going slow on fresh investment in capacity expansion, in line with a deceleration in their top line growth. The combined fixed assets of the listed companies, excluding banking, finance services and insurance (BFSI) and the government-owned oil & gas firms, were up 10.1 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) during April-September 2023 (H1FY24) - the slowest in 18 months - as against 21.1 per cent Y-o-Y growth in H2FY23 (October 2022-March 2023) and 11.6 per cent growth in the April-September 2022 period (H1FY23).
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the group's biggest cash generator, overtook Vedanta to become the highest dividend payer in India in FY23. The IT services major paid Rs 42,090 crore for FY23, up 167.4 per cent from Rs 15,738 crore for FY22. The 10 biggest payers together shelled out Rs 2.06 trillion for FY23, more than double the Rs 98,371 crore for FY22.
Gail India subsidiary Mahanagar Gas (MGL) on Friday announced a steep reduction in the retail price of compressed natural gas (CNG) by Rs 8/kg and domestic PNG (piped natural gas) by Rs 5/SCM across its licenced area. The move comes on the heels of the Centre revising the pricing methodology of domestically-produced natural gas on Thursday as proposed by the Kirit Parikh committee and following it with the new price announcement earlier in the day. In February, the city gas distributor reduced its CNG price by Rs 2.5/kg but prices are still around 80 per cent more than those in April last.
Corporate India continues to be generous in rewarding its shareholders with big dividend payouts. This is especially true for shareholders of companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Hindustan Zinc (HZL), and Coal India (CIL) which are seen as cash cows of large business groups and the government. Boosted by a big payout by these three companies, the combined equity dividend payout by listed companies was up 38 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to a record high of Rs 2.27 trillion in 2022-23 (FY23), compared with Rs 1.65 trillion in 2021-22 (FY22).
Venkataraman Krishnamurthy, who is considered as the turnaround man of several Indian corporate houses like BHEL, Maruti Udyog, SAIL and Gail (India), passed away on Sunday at the age of 97. Krishnamurthy is considered as "the father of public sector undertakings in India" by many in India Inc. Born in the temple town of Tamil Nadu's Karuveli, he started his career as an airfield technician during the Second World War.
So far, GMTS has defaulted on the supply of more than 20 cargoes or shiploads, 13 of which were set to be received in the second quarter (July-September), officials said.
The firm is on course to replace state-owned Gail India in the widely-followed index during the semi-annual review set for March.
On February 24, when Vladimir Putin announced a military operation on Ukraine, few would have thought that Indian government-owned GAIL India would feel the impact. The tensions over gas supplies were essentially a Europe-Russia problem, related to the sanctions western economies imposed on Moscow. But the EU depends on Russian imports for 40 per cent of its gas stocks, an over-dependence that Russia has underlined with Kremlin-owned Gazprom cutting its supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20 per cent, citing maintenance issues.
Named "HomoSEP", ten units are planned to be deployed across Tamil Nadu and the researchers are in touch with sanitation workers to identify the locations, officials said.
State-owned oil firms such as ONGC and IOC will invest over Rs 1.11 lakh crore in the next fiscal year starting April as they supplement the government's massive spending programme to spur economic growth. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), GAIL (India) Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) will together make a 7.4 per cent higher capital expenditure in the 2022-23 fiscal (FY23). The capex spending of Rs 1.11 lakh crore in 2022-23 compares with a revised estimate of Rs 1.04 lakh crore for the current fiscal year that ends in March, according to Union budget documents.
The biggest jump in earnings and decline in P/E multiples has occurred with top companies in metals and mining, corporate banking, and the oil and gas sectors.
Former oil secretary Tarun Kapoor, present and former chairmen of ONGC and a former director of IOC, are among over a dozen people who have applied for the top job at the oil and gas regulator, PNGRB, sources said. Kapoor, who superannuated as Secretary to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas last month, is the most prominent name in the list of 13 persons who have applied to become the chairman of Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB). Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) chairman and managing director Subhash Kumar and his predecessor Shashi Shanker are also in the race and so is G K Satish, who superannuated as Director for Planning and Business Development from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) a couple of months back.
State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and a joint venture of billionaire Gautam Adani's gas arm and Total of France -- Adani Total Gas Ltd -- have bid for maximum number of licenses to retail CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households in the latest city gas bidding round.
India's crude oil import bill is set to exceed $100 billion in the current fiscal year ending March 31, almost double its spending last year, as international oil prices trade at seven-year highs. India spent $94.3 billion in the first 10 months (April-January) of the ongoing financial year that started April 1, 2021, according to data from the oil ministry's Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC). It spent $11.6 billion in January alone when oil prices had started to surge.
GAIL (India) Ltd has pre-poned the supply of gas from the US and is looking to contract more LNG next year as it doubles down efforts to secure affordable energy supplies to meet the needs of Asia's third-largest economy, chairman Manoj Jain said. India's No.1 gas transporting and marketing firm has long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contracts from the US to Australia and with Russia, supplementing domestic gas supplies. "In 3Q (October-December 2021) we preponed a couple of cargoes (LNG shiploads) from supplies that we were to receive next year and we did it again in the current quarter," Jain told PTI. This is because US LNG costs one-third of the price of gas available in the spot or current market.
The Tata group companies are now more valuable than all the listed central public sector undertakings (CPSUs) or companies in the country. The key 20 listed Tata companies ended the 2021 calendar year with a combined market capitalisation of Rs 23.36 trillion, ahead of the 70 listed CPSUs, which had a combined m-cap of Rs 23.2 trillion. In comparison, these CPSUs had a combined market capitalisation of Rs 16.7 trillion at the end of December 2020 against the Tata group firms' combined m-cap of Rs 15.7 trillion.
It would be complete by 2012 with a total investment of over Rs 11,300 crore, including an estimated Rs 2,300 crore from RIL and Rs 9,000 crore from GAIL. Analysts say refineries -- Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals, Chennai Petroleum Corporation, Essar, Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation -- located in the vicinity of these pipelines would benefit as they would be able to substitute costly fuel oil with cheaper gas.
The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (Dipam) has asked ministries, government departments, and public sector undertakings (PSUs) to send a list of assets that can be monetised under the proposed National Monetisation Pipeline. The list will be used for creation of an asset monetisation dashboard, which will keep a track of such assets. The government, meanwhile, has asked CRISIL to prepare a road map for monetising assets of PSUs and government departments.
GAIL is in the process of laying additional pipelines in the Dadri-Bawana-Nangal and Chainsna-Jhajjar-Hissar region so as to serve the Northern market and this year alone around 1,000 km were laid, he said at a seminar on 'Energy Self Sufficiency -- The Future' organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Chennai on Friday.
GAIL India chairman and managing director B C Tripathi said the availability and possibility of gas has changed with the change in government policy.
Turnover rose to Rs 6,187 crore (Rs 61.87 billion) for the third quarter ended December 31, against Rs 5,812 crore (Rs 58.12 billion) in the same period previous fiscal, Gail (India) Ltd said.
Reliance Industries, India's largest company by market capitalisation, and GAIL India, the largest transporter and marketer of gas, have sought licences to sell natural gas to households and vehicles across 60 cities in India.
State gas utility GAIL India on Tuesday won rights to retail CNG and piped cooking gas in two of the six cities auctioned and is set to win for another two cities, while its joint venture with Hindustan Petroleum beat Reliance Industries to bag another city.
While previously selling of the marketing business, possibly to another state-owned firm, was being considered, the government is now mulling on hiving off the pipelines into a separate entity and selling off a majority stake in it.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The department believes dividend from CPSUs is a return on investment made by the government.
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