Reliance Q2 2009 net profit down 6.4 %

Reliance Q2 2009 quarterly report released; net profit down 6.4 %

Reliance Industries Limited, India’s biggest company by market value, said its 2009-2010 fiscal second quarter profit fell 6.4 percent to 3,852 crore rupees on lower refining earnings. This is the fourth straight decline in quarterly profit reported by the company as a global recession weakened fuel demand.

Mumbai-based Reliance said its net profit in the three months ended September 30 fell to 3,852 crore from 4,116 crore rupees a year ago, its fourth straight decline in quarterly profit. Sales rose to 46,848 crore from 44,688 crore rupees last year, Reliance said in a statement posted on its web site.

Reliance Industries, which operates the world’s largest refining complex, reported a 51 percent drop in the revenue it earns from processing each barrel of crude as oil prices fell from last year’s record highs. The company owned is Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, is investing in exploration to cut depended on refining.

The company started producing gas from KG D6, its biggest discovery off India’s eastern coast, in April. Reliance said it produced 40 million standard cubic metres of gas from the find in the six months to September.

The refiner earned $6 on every barrel of crude turned into fuels in the September quarter compared with $13.4 a barrel a year ago. Global refining margins have fallen to $3.42 a barrel in the quarter compared with $6.20 last year, according to BP Plc data.

Earnings from Reliance’s petrochemicals business rose 16 percent in the quarter on higher demand and help from a fall in the rupee, the company said.

Reliance said it earned $7.5 billion in the six months to September from exports of fuels from its refinery located at Jamnagar in Gujarat. It exported for about 13.2 million tonnes of fuels compared with 11 million tonnes last year, the company said.

The company’s outstanding debt as on September 30, 2009 was 71,349 crore rupees against 73,904 crore on March 31, 2009, Reliance said. The company, which has the highest weightage on the Bombay Stock Exchange’s 30-share Sensitive Index Sensex, offered stockholders a bonus of one share for each equity share owned in Reliance earlier this month.

Reliance Industries fell over 1 percent on Friday morning trading, a day after it posted it released its quarterly reports for Q2 2009.