Joining the chorus of the private sector player Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), GAIL (India) on Monday opposed the attempts by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry to regulate marketing margin charged on the sale of imported LNG.
Talking to journalists after announcing the third quarter results, Chairman and Managing Director B. C. Tripathi said: “The government rightly has the right to regulate marketing margins on all domestically produced gas. We have no issues with that. But there should not be any regulation on a commodity imported from international market and market rates.” GAIL reported a 13 per cent rise in net profit for the third quarter ended December 31, 2011. The net profit stood at Rs.1,091 crore which was 13 per cent higher than Rs.968 crore recorded a year ago.
“Growth has been due to three reasons — one, gas trading volumes were higher by 4-5 mscmd at 85 mscmd. Second, LPG production was higher by 9 per cent and it also realised better price. Third, better price realisation on higher petrochemical production contributed to the higher profit,” he said.
