Reliance Industries (RIL), India's largest private sector enterprise with businesses in the energy and materials value chain, is likely to report a 22 per cent increase in its net profit to Rs 4,000 crore for the quarter ended June 2008 helped by high refining margins, according to a survey of analysts.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 3,264 crore for the quarter ended June 2007.
The company is expected to record an increase of 52 per cent in sales to around Rs 43,000 crore for the quarter ended June 2008 as compared with Rs 28,056 crore for quarter ended June 2007.
During the quarter, RIL has recorded gross refining margin (GRM) of $15.5 per barrel against $ 7 per barrel, the benchmark Singapore gross refining margin. Refining and margin account for 66 per cent of RIL's business.
"On account of higher complexity of the refinery, RIL has been consistently outperforming the benchmark Singapore gross refining margins by $5-7 per barrel over the last three years. However, growth of the petrochemical segment will be subdued as increase in the input prices (crude and naptha) has not been in line with rise in prices of end products (polymer and polyester)," said Vinay Nair, research analyst, Khandwala Securities.
Meanwhile, rising oil prices and the falling rupee are expected to help Oil and Natural Gas Corp post higher net profits in the June quarter of this financial year. Firm oil prices may result in the company's selling its crude oil at an average price of $60 per barrel in April-June 2008, say analysts.
This is over 19 per cent higher than the $50.34 per barrel price it got in the first quarter of 2008. ONGC sells its crude oil at a discount.
The official in the company said that the oil prices were likely to offset the higher discounts during the quarter. Analysts polled by Business Standard project that the discount during the quarter will be Rs 11,000 crore compared with Rs 4,370 crore in the same quarter last year.
The oil marketing companies—IOC, BPCL and HPCL— on the other hand could experience pressure on their margins with nearly 22 per cent rise in the price of crude oil since April this year along with depreciation in the value of the rupee against the US currency.
"Unless the government gives us bonds of over Rs 2,500 crore and the oil producers give similar discounts, we will not be able to maintain our profit levels," said a senior official in Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country's largest crude oil refiner and marketer of petroleum products.
The government is yet to announce the bonds it will give the oil marketing companies and the discounts that the oil producers will give to partly compensate the marketers for selling automobile fuels and cooking gas at subsidised prices.
IOC reported net profit of Rs 1,465 crore in the first quarter of 2007-08 on the back of Rs 2,440 crore worth of discounts given by the oil producers ONGC and Oil India.
The company also had a gain of Rs 1,134.47 crore as the rupee rose in 2007-08.
