Petronet LNG reported consolidated net profit of Rs 1,235 crore for the September quarter on 2 November, up 53 per cent from Rs 806 crore a year earlier, even as revenue from operations fell 34.5 per cent to Rs 7,202 crore. The board declared an interim dividend of Rs 7 per share. Managing director Akshay Kumar Singh said at the same briefing that Petronet is negotiating to recover delayed Qatar cargoes earlier than the contract allows.
Why Profit Rose While Revenue Fell
The two lines move in opposite directions for a structural reason. Under its contracted volume model, Petronet books the full pass-through value of Qatari gas as revenue. When those cargoes stopped arriving, it replaced them with tolling volumes sourced elsewhere, where only the regasification fee is booked. Revenue collapsed while the terminals kept earning.
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Petronet attributed the quarter to commercial and operational efficiency. Nomura’s June quarter note shows what that covers: trading gains of Rs 300 crore and inventory gains of Rs 190 crore, with adjusted profit at Rs 840 crore against a reported Rs 1,130 crore. Volatile spot prices flatter the reported line.
The half year tells the same story. Profit before tax for April to September reached Rs 3,174 crore and profit after tax Rs 2,368 crore, against Rs 2,219 crore and Rs 1,656 crore a year earlier. Most of that gain arrived while the core regasification business ran well below capacity.
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Seventy Cargoes That Never Arrived
Singh said Petronet expected 75 to 80 cargoes between March and October 2026 and received about six. Deliveries have been under force majeure since March, when strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex shut the world’s largest LNG export plant. In normal conditions Petronet lifts 9 to 10 cargoes a month from Qatar, each carrying roughly 138,000 cubic metres of LNG.
A second backlog sits behind the first. Around 53 to 54 cargoes remain pending from the 2015-16 settlement agreement. The 20-year QatarEnergy contract for 7.5 million tonnes a year, signed by Petronet LNG, runs from May 2028 to December 2048 and carries a one-year recovery window, so deferred cargoes can land at original long-term prices without renegotiation.
Qatar supplies about a fifth of global LNG exports, all of it through the Strait of Hormuz. Petronet’s Qatar book meets 35 to 45 per cent of India’s LNG imports. Bloomberg has reported that QatarEnergy expects output to reach half of capacity within a month of safe passage, 80 per cent within two, with two damaged trains taking years to restore.
What The Dahej Numbers Say
Throughput looks almost flat and is not. Dahej processed 216 TBTU against 211 TBTU a year earlier, and the company overall 231 TBTU against 228 TBTU. Reported utilisation at Dahej still fell to 73 per cent from 92 per cent, and at company level to 64 per cent from 78 per cent, because the regasification expansion lifted Dahej’s nameplate capacity to 22.5 MMTPA from 17.5 MMTPA.
That single change explains much of the utilisation gap: the same volume is now measured against a denominator 28 per cent larger. Sequentially Dahej utilisation rose from 66 per cent and the company from 58 per cent, as tolling cargoes from non-Middle East suppliers filled part of Qatar’s hole.
The Dividend And The Capex Bill
The Rs 7 interim dividend is modest against the profit, and deliberately so. Petronet is entering its heaviest spending phase, with about Rs 9,000 crore each in FY27 and FY28 for the Dahej petrochemical complex and the Gopalpur terminal. Nomura expects free cash flow to turn negative and net debt to appear by FY29, from net cash above Rs 10,000 crore at the end of FY26.
That cash pile has been the company’s answer to a supply shock it cannot control. Spending it on downstream assets while the terminals run at 64 per cent utilisation is a bet that volumes return before the interest bill does.
The Editorial Read
The quarter is strong and the quality of it deserves a second look. A 53 per cent profit rise built on trading gains, inventory revaluation and a shrinking revenue base is not the same as a 53 per cent rise in the regasification franchise, which is running a third below last year’s utilisation.
Three things decide the rest of FY27. Whether the force majeure lifts in the third quarter, whether the mix swings back to contracted volumes that restore reported revenue, and whether roughly 130 deferred cargoes arriving at 1999 contract prices become the margin cushion it is counting on. Petronet can earn through a supply crisis. Growing through one is a different test.
