Shailesh Yadav
New Delhi [India]May 19 (ANI): Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) on Thursday reported a 77.4 per cent year-on-year decline in standalone net profit for the fourth quarter due to the Ukraine-Russia war.
Standalone net profit declined 77.5 per cent year-on-year to Rs 603 crore in the fourth quarter (Q4), as against a net profit of Rs 2,683 crore in the year-ago period.
Speaking to ANI, Sandeep Kumar Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, GAIL said that due to Russia-Ukraine war, gas prices became very high, which affected the profit of the company, its highest ever annual revenue of Rs 1,44,302 crore which was up 57 per cent for FY23.
Gupta said, “The petrochemical segment was affected, gas prices were not viable and due to this, we had to shut down our plant and also keep it running at a lower level for a substantial period of the year as we needed to serve our customers. which were tied to long-term costs.
“However, we had to procure higher priced gas to supply to our customers and in transmission as some of the APM (Administered Price Mechanism) allocations, which were there, were taken away, so we had to buy higher priced natural gas,” he said. The gas had to be consumed.For our internal consumption as well.
Now with prices coming down, he added that he expects all these adverse factors to not happen in the next financial year and the company should come back with very strong numbers in the current financial year.
Talking about the present situation of supply-demand ration, CMD GAIL said, “The supply disruption started from May 22 last year after the Ukraine-Russia war and while it was a portfolio contract and the supplier was required to Should have supplied Sourcing from other geographies if it was not possible from a particular region, but then they didn’t supply.”
He also expressed hope, “However, it is good news that supplies have resumed since March this year.”
He said that for the last two months the company was getting full allotment as per the contract and it is expected to continue. “So, it is a big kind of assurance on the supply front. And of course, there is no cut as far as our downstream customers are concerned,” the GAIL CMD said.
Speaking on the lines of the Kirit Parikh committee’s recommendation, the CMD said, “It is a very important positive development that the government has accepted the recommendation. It will definitely help.”
In fact, he said, “We have seen that with the implementation of this recommendation from earlier this year, there was a big drop in CNG (compressed natural gas) and PNG (piped natural gas) prices and certainly the prices are not going to change.” With the moderation, the consumption which was not happening especially last year, will now come back to normal level.
He said that more new customers will also be connected with this. “So, of course this will be the biggest step in moving to a higher level of natural gas consumption,” he said.
“We are getting gas supplies from Qatar, America and Russia from Australia. So, we have a very diversified portfolio of supplies. Now we are searching for new versions and wherever there are new sections. We are talking to all such companies or countries. The new variants are mainly coming from the Middle East and North America. These are the geographical areas where discussions are going on.”
Talking about the hydrogen plant, Gupta said, “Our first green hydrogen electrolyzer is coming up at Vijaipur, Madhya Pradesh, it will have a capacity of 4.3 tonnes per day and it will be commissioned this year itself.” (ANI)
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