Saudi Aramco third-quarter profit slumps 44.6 per cent as pandemic chokes demand
Saudi Arabian state oil group Aramco on Tuesday reported a 44.6 per cent drop in third-quarter net profit, in line with analysts’ estimates, dented by lower crude oil prices and volumes sold as the coronavirus crisis choked demand. Weaker refining and chemicals margins have also hit the company’s net profit, which fell to 44.21 billion riyals ($11.79 billion) for the quarter ended Sept. 30 from 79.84 billion riyals last year. Analysts had expected a net profit of 44.6 billion riyals in the third quarter, according to the mean estimate from three analysts, provided by Refinitiv. “We saw early signs of a recovery in the third quarter due to improved economic activity, despite the headwinds facing global energy markets,” Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said in a statement. The company said it would distribute a dividend of $18.75 billion for the third quarter of this year, in line with its plan to pay a base dividend of $75 billion for 2020. Dividends from the world’s top oil producing company play a critical role in helping the Saudi government manage its fiscal deficit.
India’s October LNG imports surge as demand rebounds to pre-Covid levels
Indian imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) surged in October, shiptracking data from Refinitiv Eikon and data intelligence firm Kpler showed, as the country’s gas demand bounced back to pre-COVID levels. LNG shipments to India in October rose to about 2.5 million tonnes, the highest monthly volumes on its record, Refiniv Eikon data showed. Kpler pegged October arrivals at the second highest on record at 2.75 million tonnes, just under February’s imports of 2.79 million tonnes. “City gas, gas-based power sector as well as revival from other sectors is boosting LNG imports into the country,” an India-based gas importer told Reuters. “We are already back to pre-Covid levels with additional demand being seen from city gas and power sectors.” Spot gas imports by the electricity generation sector, which account for over a fifth of India’s total consumption of the fuel, doubled in the June quarter to the highest in at least 14 quarters. India’s natural gas prices fell to their lowest since 2014 for the October-March 2021 period which meant reduced costs for gas for fertilisers, automobiles and households. Asian LNG spot prices had also until recently been near record lows, which boosted appetite for imports of the super-chilled fuel, traders said, adding that this could slow from December, however, with spot prices rebounding to a more than one-year high. India has also been receiving at least one LNG cargo a month from Russia’s Yamal LNG plant since September, this year, after the last such flow was seen only in March, Refinitiv data showed. LNG shipments from Oman to India in October were also at a record high, the data showed. The South Asian country’s factory activity expanded at its fastest pace in over a decade in October as demand and output continued to recover strongly from coronavirus-related disruptions, in turn boosting gas demand.
India’s GSPL says new pipeline to boost FY22 gas supply by a quarter
Gas transmission by India’s Gujarat State Petronet Ltd will rise by about a quarter in the next fiscal year starting from April as it links northern regions to an existing grid in the western state, a company official said on Tuesday. The 930-km (578-miles) pipeline linking Mehsana in Gujarat to Bathinda in the northern state of Punjab at a cost of 55 billion rupees ($739 million) will be ready by March, the firm’s joint managing director, Sanjeev Kumar, told Reuters. “Around 80 per cent of the physical work of the pipeline has been completed,” Kumar said in a telephone interview. India’s coronavirus lockdown hit construction of the pipeline, with a daily capacity of 30 million cubic meters (mmscmd), delaying it past an initial completion date of December. GSPL operates about 2,700 km (1,678 miles) of gas pipelines with capacity of 43 mmscmd, but in the 2019-20 financial year it supplied 40 mmscmd gas, as one pipeline was commissioned only in November 2019. “The initial capacity utilization of the Mehsana-Bathinda pipeline will be 9 to 10 mmscmd, which will be scaled up as new gas import terminals come up in the state,” Kumar added. Two gas import terminals are expected to begin operations in Gujarat’s areas of Jaffrabad and Chhara in 2022. India’s six existing terminals can handle 42.5 million tonnes of gas imports annually, with about 3/4ths of that capacity located in its west. Gujarat’s robust gas infrastructure has led to the fuel accounting for about a quarter of its energy mix, against a national average of 6.2 per cent. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks to boost that figure to 15 per cent by 2030, Indian firms are spending billions of dollars to strengthen gas networks. GSPL will use the new pipeline to supply refineries in the northern cities of Panipat and Bathinda, as well as industries and city gas distributors, Kumar said. It will also be linked to one of its existing pipelines to supply a refinery being built at Barmer in the desert state of Rajasthan, he added.