Petronet LNG Ltd (PETRONET) Q2FY27 Concall Transcript - Sep-2026 Qtr
Moderator: Your passcode has been confirmed. Please wait while you are joined to the conference. The conference is now being recorded.
Moderator (ICICI Securities Limited): Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Petronet LNG Q2 FY '27 earnings conference call, hosted by ICICI Securities Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Probal Sen from ICICI Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Probal Sen (ICICI Securities Limited): Thank you, ma'am. Thank you to everyone who has made time to attend this post second quarter of FY '27 earnings call of Petronet LNG Limited. We have with us members of the senior management of the company, including Mr. Sourav Mitra, the Director of Finance, as well as the CFO; Mr. Rakesh Chawla, the ED F&A; Mr. Mukesh Gupta, GGM and President, F&A; Mr. Vivek Mittal, Mithal, sorry, GGM and President, Marketing; Mr. Debadatta Satpathy, CGM and VP of F&A; and Mr. Vikas Maheshwari, GM, F&A. We will start off with opening remarks from the management, post which we will have an interactive Q&A session. Over to you, Sourav, sir.
Sourav Mitra (Petronet LNG Ltd): Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Probal. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome to the earnings call for Q2 FY '26-'27. I'm happy to share that the company has delivered an excellent set of results for the second quarter and the first half of the financial year. This has been our best-ever second quarter as well as our best-ever half-year in terms of both PBT and PAT. Let me briefly take you to the key numbers. Starting with operations, we processed 231 TBTU of LNG during the quarter, compared to two night 2,000 207 TBTU in the previous quarter and 228 TBTU in the corresponding quarter last year. This represents a growth of 12% over the previous quarter and 1% over the corresponding quarter. At Dahej, throughput stood at 216 TBTU as against 192 TBTU in the previous quarter and 211 TBTU in the corresponding quarter last year. I would like to clarify that the utilization percentages for the current and previous quarters are based on Dahej's expanded capacity of 22.5 million tons per annum compared to 17.5 million metric tons per annum last year. So, while the reported utilization is lower year-on-year, the actual volumes processed have increased. Coming to capacity utilization, Dahej operated at 73% compared with 66% in the previous quarter and 92% in the corresponding quarter. Overall utilization stood at 64% as against 58% and 78%, respectively. The financial performance has been particularly encouraging. PLL achieved a PBT of INR 1,669 crore compared with INR 1,514 crore in the previous quarter and INR 1,083 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. This represents a growth of about 10% sequentially and 53% year-on-year. Similarly, PAT stood at INR 1,235 crore compared with INR 1,133 crore in the
Sourav Mitra (Petronet LNG Ltd): quarter and 806 crore in the corresponding quarter last year, registering a growth of 9% sequentially and 53% year-on-year. For the first half, PBT stood at 3,174 crore and PAT at 2,368 crore, both registering a growth of 43% over the corresponding year period last year. I wholeheartedly thank the investors and analysts for reposing their trust on PLL through the years. With this, we open the floor for questions and answers session. Thank you.
Moderator (ICICI Securities Limited): Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Mayank Maheshwari from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Mayank Maheshwari (Morgan Stanley): Hi, sir. Thank you for the call and good set of volume numbers today. I had two questions. One in terms of a big picture view around how you are thinking about India's gas consumption and elasticity to gas prices. And second was more on the petchem project, if you can just elaborate on the progress for that project as well as what are your CapEx numbers, etcetera, that you've spent and outlook for the second half. Thank you.
Sourav Mitra (Petronet LNG Ltd): Okay. So, I would like to take the first question, second question first, Mayank. And thank you for joining the call. So, total CapEx during the first half of the year stood at 1,626 crore. However, we expect an uptick in the CapEx during the second half because we have been able to place all the major orders, and the project progress is on schedule. So, although on ground, although financially, the progress appears to be a little less, but if you see the on ground physical progress, it is as per the schedule. Secondly, coming to a first question, Vivek, if you can, please.
Vivek Mittal (Petronet LNG Ltd): Thank you, sir. So, in terms of gas demand in India, we have seen uptick in gas demand despite the fact that Qatar volumes are not coming in. In fact, we have done certain analysis. So, last year, 2025 calendar year, India imported 25.3 million tons of LNG. In the first 9 months of this calendar year, which is 2026, India imported 20.15 million tons. So, if we do a pro rata of 25 million tons, it works out to around 19 million tons. So, vis-a-vis 19 million tons, India imported 20 million tons in the current calendar year. In terms of sources, we have seen US, Oman, Nigeria, Angola, Trinidad, and Australia going up. Of course, Qatar and UAE have come down. So, this entire demand decline from Qatar and UAE has been compensated by these sources. And this is despite the fact that the prices are in the range of $20 to $25 in the till from March till September. So, so we believe that Indian demand is resilient. In terms of sectors, I think fertilizer is a major sector because Qatar volumes used to go into fertilizer in a big way. So, that demand is being now met through cargo being sourced either by other suppliers on long-term or on spot basis. Other sector which is picking up we have seen is CGD sector despite the fact that the CGD companies are not doing well, but the demand continues to grow and the PPAC numbers also reflect now. In fact, CGD is probably the top consuming sector in India very closely followed by fertilizer sector. So, these two sectors have contributed to demand growth. Power is also supported because coal supplies were impacted during this period. So, power
Vivek Mittal (Petronet LNG Ltd): So, we have seen gas flow into power sector. So, these three sectors primarily we will attribute this demand to.
Mayank Maheshwari (Morgan Stanley): Yes sir, and just to kind of extend this question a bit in terms of
Moderator (ICICI Securities Limited): I am sorry to interrupt you, sir. Your voice is breaking a lot. I request you to please use your handset.
147 more turns of this transcript: log in to Stocksigma to read the full call.