RIL Q4 PAT seen down 3.2% at Rs 4300 cr QoQ

Oil & gas producer Reliance Industries is expected report a profit after tax of Rs 4,300 crore in the January-March quarter of FY12, degrowth of 3.2% as compared to Rs 4,440 crore in the previous quarter, according to CNBC-TV18 poll

Sales are seen going down by 1% to Rs 84,300 crore from Rs 85,135 crore quarter-on-quarter.
During the same period, operating profit margin is seen declining at 8.1% versus 8.56%.
Poll of analysts expects gross refining margin (GRM) to be largely flat on quarter-on-quarter basis. The company had reported GRM at USD 6.8 a barrel in Q3.
Petchem EBIT is expected to be down over 15% QoQ and production from its D6 block too is expected to decline by over 10% QoQ. Production from D6 block was averaged at 41 mmscmd in the previous quarter and now the poll is that it is likely to be at 36-37 mmscmd in the March quarter. 
Reliance Industries is coming out of a very challenging quarter and analysts expect this to reflect in the fourth quarter numbers due on Friday.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries has been struggling. Adverse global and domestic factors pushed third quarter gross refining margins below Singapore gross refining margins and in the fourth quarter, there's been no relief.
Singapore GRMs have fallen 4% quarter-on-quarter to 7.6 dollars per barrel, andlLight heavy crude spread has fallen nearly 20%.
So RIL's fourth quarter numbers are expected to remain muted.
Anand Tandon, CEO, JRG Securities says, “Reliance Industries result can't be very good. You are not really expecting any positive surprises one way or the other. The spread between heavy and light crude also in terms of refining margins has narrowed, which is not necessarily great for the earnings of Reliance.”
Prakash Diwan, Asit C Mehta Investment adds, “The GRMs are struggling distinctly. From what we gather, it could probably even be lesser than last time, 6.8 dollars. If it ends up being lower than 6.5 dollars, it could be disastrous for the stock and it would find it very difficult to recover from there on.”
Adding to this is pressure from its oil and gas business, which has lost steam recently following the drop in KG-D6 gas production.
Its petrochemical business is not doing great either -- EBIT margins have been under pressure through FY12.
EBITDA, which declined on both a year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter basis in the third quarter,
SP Tulsian,  sptulsian.com explains, “I have not seen any improvement happening in the petchem margin as well. Apart from that maybe the quantity off take will also be seen dampening the petchem segments and upstream also has marginally maybe about 2-5% we have seen a drop."
Given these pressures, analysts expect fourth quarter net profits to drop by around 24 percent. They also do not expect any significant growth in sales or volumes. And unless there is some headway in lifting KGD6 production, or some relief from the global oil environment, the first quarter of FY13 could also see some pain.