Reliance Industries Records Quaterly Profit of Rs. 6720 Crore

Mumbai, Oct 16: On Friday, Reliance Industries reported a record consolidated net profit of Rs.12,942 crore ($2 billion) for the six-month period ended September 30, which is a huge jump of an 8.5 percent compared to last year. For the second quarter, the profit was up 12.5 percent.

The company reported in a filing with the stock exchanges that the revenues were down 28.5 percent during the first half at Rs.158,181 crore. Also, for the second quarter, the revenues were down 33.8 percent, at Rs.75,117 crore.

On a standalone basis, the net profit increased by 14.3 percent to Rs.6,561 crore ($1 billion).

The numbers of both the company and its subsidiaries are considered inn consolidated accounting, while on a standalone basis only the company’s own numbers take into consideration and not of its subsidiaries.

“We achieved record levels of EBITDA (earning before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) and profits for the quarter, underscoring our ability to optimally utilize our assets across the value chain to leverage favorable market conditions,” chairman Mukesh Ambani said.

“Refining business performance was notable as it benefited from a combination of high utilization levels, advantageous crude market opportunities and strong global fuels demand. Petrochemicals performance reflects strong volume growth, product mix improvement and lower energy costs.”

He added that for the first time, the retail arm acquired a milestone of Rs.5,000-crore quarterly turnover mark and that its petcoke gasification facility and ethylene cracker complex remained on track for its planned 2016 start-up.

“In digital services, We have initiated the process of beta testing of our network and platforms as we have substantially completed the network roll-out across the country ”

The company said that the Wi-Fi hotspots across several locations in the country are launched by Jio Infocomm and some of the state and local authorities have agreed to provide such services.

Roll-out of last-mile connectivity for its fibre-to-the-home business is also on. The company has a pan-India unified license for all net-based services, including voice and data and it said that the initial test results on the network were positive.

“The company assumes to ramp up its beta program in the coming few weeks to further optimize the network, before launching the operations commercially. Financial year 2016-17 is projected to be the first year of commercial operations for Reliance Jio,” the company said.

It has also filed for the sharing of spectrum in the 800MHz band with Reliance Communications across seven circles to the department of telecommunications (DoT).

Reliance Jio aims to provide end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, communication, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment.

Other highlights of the announcements on Friday by Reliance:

– Standalone net profit at Rs. 6,561 crore in second quarter, up 3.8 year-on-year

– Seven-year-high gross refining margin of $10.6 per barrel

– Crude processing at 17.1 million tonnes at operating rate of 110 percent

– Gross refining margin at $10.6 per barrel, highest in seven years

– Retail revenue turnover growth of 22 percent year-on-year