RIL posts high quarterly profit over US gas biz, retail operations

MUMBAI: Reliance Industries sees the beginnings of a strong business cycle for refining, its key business, Chief Financial Officer Alok Agarwal said after the company announced that fourth-quarter net profit rose 0.8%.

Agarwal said 2013-14 had been a great year for the conglomerate. "Last year was a great year as far as we are concerned, we had a total revenue of over Rs 4 lakh crore which was a milestone for the company. We also posted our highest ever quarterly EBITDA, which was 7% higher than the earlier number,” he told reporters.

He said the company’s shale gas business in USA and domestic retail operations were gaining momenturm. “Overall growth in our consolidated profits came from our shale gas business in the US, which saw a revenue of $900 million and a EBITDA of $700 million. Also our retail business moved from the red to black with an EBIDTA of Rs 360 crores. We achieved this due to sheer scale and a frugal approach to costs."

“The outlook for the refining sector is encouraging as we can see the early stages of a strong refining cycle largely due to strong growth in global demand of oil and transport fuels as there are signs of recovery in the US market and also in emerging markets,” he said.

"In the domestic upstream sector the production decline was in line with expectation although this quarter there was some incremental production due to the hooking up of the MA 8 well, overall current production is at 13-14 mmscmd."

Agarwal also said the company had so far spent Rs 33,000 crore on its telecom venture. He said RIL had already invested roughly 30% of the total $13 billion capital expenditure earmarked for the refining and petrochemical business. The rest will be invested over the next 18-20 months.

“Scale and frugal approach to cost have helped in turning around the retail business.