GAIL declares 45 percent quarterly net profit

New Delhi, May 18 (ANI): Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), largest gas transmission and marketing company in India has reported a 45 percent rise in quarterly net profit.

"Gas transmission business has shown a growth of 28 percent with a level of 106.74 mmscmd, and the gas trading has shown a growth of three percent, because of the sport cargos and our own trading efforts. LPG transmission has shown a good growth of 15 percent during this year. There is a little bit down sight in the petrochemical by one percent because of the plant shutdown during the quarter," said RK Goel, Director (Finance), GAIL, New Delhi.

B C Tripathi, Chairman and Managing Director of GAIL, said the company aims to spend 80 billion rupees in the current fiscal year, the bulk of it on expanding its pipeline network.

"We have completed almost 800 kilometres of pipeline, and this year the pipelines which are right now under construction, which we will be completing sometime by the end of this year, and may be at the end of this financial year, almost 1,200 kilometres pipeline. We will also be starting another 1,500 kilometre pipeline, which will be completed by the end of 2011, sometime by October-November this year," he said.

GAIL already has 7,200 kilometres of natural gas pipelines with capacity of 148 million cubic metres a day.

GAIL, which owns 70 percent of India's gas pipeline infrastructure, plans to invest 353.46 billion rupees by March 2014, including borrowings of 200 billion.

India's gas output grew nearly 45 percent to 47.57 billion cubic meters in the year ended March 31 as Reliance Industries began pumping gas from its D6 block off India's east coast. But pipeline constraints have curbed gas supplies to potential clients.

Last month Reliance Industries Executive Director P. M. S. Prasad said that the lack of pipeline infrastructure was one of the reasons for not stepping up gas output. (ANI)