Petronet LNG, the owner of the largest Indian import terminal at Dahej in the West Coast state of Gujarat and a smaller facility at Kochi in the southwest state of Kerala, reported 10 percent higher fiscal second-quarter net profits, though revenues dropped by over 22 percent from the same quarter last year because of much lower prices.
The company reported consolidated net profits of 818.10 crore Indian rupees ($98.24 million) for the second quarter of the fiscal year compared with 744.25 crore rupees ($89.37M) in the second quarter of 2022 and 789.85 crore rupees ($94.85M) in the previous 2023 quarter to the end of June.
The company’s consolidated revenues from operations were much lower this year than last because of higher prices that prevailed in 2022.
The fiscal second-quarter revenues dropped by over 22 percent to 12,532.57 crore rupees ($1.30 billion) from 16,079.97 crore rupees ($1.93Bln) reported in the same quarter of last year.
However, the fiscal second-quarter income was higher than the 11,656.38 crore rupees ($1.39Bln) logged in the April-June quarter of 2023.
Dahej efficiency
“The robust financial performance of the current quarter and half year was achieved due to efficiency in operations and higher capacity utilization of the Dahej Terminal, that remained consistently above 90 percent in the current quarter and half year, taking a huge leap from the utilization level in fiscal 2022-23 that was below 80 percent,” Petronet explained.
The Petronet board of directors also approved investment of around 20,685 crore rupees ($2.48Bln) for the development of a petrochemicals project including a propane and ethane handling facility near the Dahej terminal site, located north of Mumbai.
Earnings per share increased to 5.45 rupees ($0.065) versus 4.96 rupees in the prior-year quarter.
The earnings statement showed that during the quarter to the end of September 2023, the Dahej terminal processed 210 trillion British thermal units (TBTU) of LNG compared with 182 TBTU during the corresponding quarter of 2022 and 217 TBTU during the previous quarter from April-to-June 2023.
Overall LNG volumes processed by the company during the three months, including the Kochi terminal, came to 223 TBTU, as against the LNG volume processed in the corresponding and previous quarters, which stood at 192 TBTU and 230 TBTU respectively.
The company receives about 8.5 million tonnes per annum under three principal long-term supply contracts, two with Qatar and one with the Chevron-operated Gorgon LNG plant in Western Australia.
Petronet is also planning a third import facility and its first on the East Coast at the Port of Gopalpur in the state of Odisha.
Petronet was formed by the Government of India in 1998 specifically to import LNG.
Shareholders in Petronet, which began operations in 2004, include the other big Indian energy players, GAIL India, Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum Corp. and Oil and Natural Gas Corp.
