RIL to invest Rs 1 lakh cr, double operating profit in five years

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India's largest company in terms of market value, will invest $18 billion or Rs 1,00,000 crore in the next five years as it plans to double its operating profit by then and hike gas production by 30 mmscmd to 60 mmscmd, its chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani told shareholders on Thursday.

"We will invest nearly Rs 1 lakh crore over the next five years in India," Ambani said at the 38th annual general meeting of the company. "I have set myself the target to double the operating profit of your company in about five years," he added.

For the fiscal ended March 2012, RIL had reported an operating profit or profit from operations before other income, finance costs and exceptional items of Rs 22,416 crore, down 9 per cent compared to a year ago, on revenues of Rs 3,39,792 crore. The net profit was at Rs 20,040 crore.

RIL, which had seen natural gas production at its eastern offshore KG-D6 block halve to about 34 million standard cubic meters per day in March compared to 61.5 mmscmd in March 2010, as pressure in the wells dropped and water ingress curtailed gas output, also outlined new gas production targets. The company, which sold a 30 per cent stake in 23 oil and gas blocks in KG-D6 basin for $7.5 billion to British energy major BP Plc, is working closely with its partner, to understand the complex geology of the D6 block.

"We are well on the way to creating a pipeline of projects for our next wave of oil and gas development projects which would include R series discoveries and all the satellite discoveries." These efforts, he said, would add around 30 mmscmd of additional production through the new wave of planned developments by 2015, which includes developing of two coal bed methane blocks in Sohagpur, Madhya Pradesh. "We are targeting to achieve, in the next three to four years, a total production of 60 mmscmd gas for a sustained period," he said.

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