The country’s largest gas distributor, GAIL (India), on Monday reported a 90% year-on-year decline in net profit for the December quarter (Q3FY23) to `397.59 crore, owing to losses in the petrochemical and gas marketing business.
Consolidated net profit of the state-run utility came in at `397.59 crore in October-December 2022 compared with `3,800.09 crore in the same period a year ago, according to the company’s stock exchange filing.
On Monday, the GAIL stock on BSE ended `94.95 apiece, down 4.24%.
The company booked a loss of `349 crore in the petrochemical business after it had to cut run rate due to curtailment in supply of cheaper domestic gas. Its natural gas marketing division, too, incurred a loss while the pre-tax profitability of the core transmission business halved.
Revenue from operations rose 37% to `35,939.96 crore in October-December 2022 from `26,175.60 crore a year ago.
The firm is grappling with challenges because of Russia-owned Gazprom Marketing and Trading’s failure to deliver some liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes following western sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine last year.
GAIL signed a 20-year deal with Gazprom Marketing and Trading Singapore (GMTS) in 2012 for annual purchases of an average of 2.5 million tonne of LNG. GMTS was a unit of Gazprom Germania, now called Sefe, but the parent abandoned the business last April after the western sanctions.
(With agency inputs)