Jul. 28 – Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s largest private company by market value, reported a rise of 32.3 percent in first quarter net profits on Tuesday, thanks in part to higher than expected output from its offshore oil and gas fields.
It was the third straight quarter that the Indian conglomerate posted an increase in net profits, culminating in profits of Rs. 48.51 billion (US$1.04 billion) for the April-June period, up from last year’s Rs. 36.66 billion (US$786 million).
“We had yet another record quarter due to high operating rates and improving margins across all our businesses,” Reliance Industries’ Chairman Mukesh Ambani said in a statement.
Contributions to the bottom line made by Reliance’s D6 block in the Krishna Godavari Basin off the eastern coast of India proved to be one of the leading factors pushing revenue growth forward over the quarter. The D6 block alone saw crude oil production rise 207 percent to 304,349 tons and natural gas extraction increase 210 percent to 5,376 million metric standard cubic meters compared with the same period last year.
“Revenue growth [in the oil and gas business] is entirely on account of KG D6 production,” Reliance said.
Over the quarter, the company also announced its intentions to invest US$3 billion in two separate shale gas projects in the United States. Reliance came to a US$1.7 billion agreement with Atlas Energy back in April and recently signed another US$1.3 billion deal for a 45 percent stake in Pioneer Natural Resources’ Eagle Ford shale gas field in Texas.
