The fall in oil prices boosted the company's refining and petrochem margins, helping it post a 16% jump in earnings in March-end.
Reliance Industries on Friday reported its highest quarterly net profit in over eight years as fall in oil prices boosted refining and petrochem margins, helping the company post a 16% jump in earnings for the three-month period ended March 31.
Consolidated net profit in January-March at Rs 7,398 crore or Rs 25.1 a share was 15.9% higher than Rs 6,381 crore or Rs 21.7 per share profit a year ago.
Standalone net profit was 17.25% higher at Rs 7,320 crore.
This is the highest quarterly net profit for RIL since it clocked Rs 8,079 crore net profit in the third quarter of 2007-08.
RIL, operator of the world's biggest oil-refinery complex, earned $10.8 for turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in the fourth quarter of 2015-16 compared with a gross refining margin of $10.1 per barrel a year ago. The GRM outperformed Singapore benchmark by $3.1 a barrel.
Sales, however, dropped 12% to Rs 64,569 crore in January-March.
The company posted a record annual net profit at Rs 27,630 crore or Rs 93.1 per share in 2015-16, up 17.2% over Rs 23,566 crore, or Rs 80.1 a share.
Turnover was, however, down 23.8% to Rs 2,96,091 crore on lower oil prices.
RIL chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said the much-talked about 4G telecom and high-speed broadband services will be launched this year. But he did not give a specific date.
"The commercial roll-out of Jio services this year will digitally enable a billion Indians and propel growth for India and Reliance," he said.
The refining segment of oil-to-telecom conglomerate recorded the highest ever quarterly pre-tax profit (EBIT) of Rs 6,394 crore, up 30.4% year-on-year. Petrochemical EBIT was up 35.4% at Rs 2,713 crore.
The two helped offset 84.4% drop in EBIT from oil and gas business at Rs 14 crore. "The segment profitability was impacted by lower oil and gas price realisations and decrease in domestic upstream volume. US shale operations were impacted by low commodity prices despite marginally higher volumes," RIL said.
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