India's state-owned gas transportation utility GAIL Monday announced another quarter in which natural gas transmission and sales volumes fell, as domestic production continued to decline.
GAIL's natural gas transmission for the January-March quarter was down 4.8% year on year to 94.7 million cu m/d and natural gas sales fell 4.8% on the year to 76.3 million cu m/d.
GAIL's natural gas transmission volume for the financial year ended March was down 8.3% year on year to 96.2 million cu m/d, while natural gas sales fell 2.8% on the year to 79.18 million cu m/d.
GAIL's financial year runs from April to March.
GAIL imported seven cargoes of LNG during the fourth quarter, and 26 cargoes for the full financial year, Chairman B C Tripathi said at a televised press conference in New Delhi.
Tripathi said domestic gas production has not come back on stream even as much as the company had anticipated, affecting the performance of the company in terms of both natural gas transmission and trading.
Natural gas volumes remained low, mainly due to lower production from the eastern offshore KG-D6 block and the western offshore Panna, Mukta and Tapti fields, Tripathi said.
However, GAIL's profit after tax for the fourth quarter rose 57% year on year to Rupees 9.72 billion ($166 million) on revenue from natural gas transmission and higher price realization from its petrochemical and LPG businesses.
GAIL's turnover in the fourth quarter was up 16.6% year on year at Rupees 144.64 billion.
GAIL owns and operates a network of over 9,500 km of high pressure natural gas trunk pipeline with a capacity to carry 172 million cu m/d.
