Coal India Q4 net profit rises 26% to Rs 8,640.5 crore, firm declares Rs 5 dividend

Gevra coal mine in Chhattisgarh.

Coal India Ltd (CIL) on May 2 reported 26 percent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 8,640.5 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2024. The government-owned company had reported a net profit of Rs 6,869.5 crore in the year-ago period.

There was rise in CIL's bottom line despite its revenue from operations falling nearly 2 percent to Rs 37,410.4 crore in the quarter under review from Rs 38,152.3 crore in the same quarter last year.

Moreover, CIL’s consolidated sales also fell to Rs 39,654.4 crore in the January-March period from Rs 40,371.5 in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year, a decrease of 1.8 percent.

The state-owned company also said that the board has declared its third interim dividend for financial year 2023-24 at Rs 5 per share.

This was in addition to the interim dividend of Rs 20.50 per share CIL had already paid earlier in the fiscal. Thus, the total dividend for the fiscal climbs to Rs 25.50 per share which is 255 percent of face value of a single share.

According to consensus estimates of 11 brokerages, the Public sector undertakings' (PSU) revenue for Q4FY24 is expected to increase by 8.7 percent to Rs 38,152 crore as against Rs 35,092 crore in Q4FY23. PAT, on the other hand, is expected to increase by 27 percent to Rs 7,617 crore from Rs 5,533 crore in Q4FY23, but is expected to decline on a QoQ basis.

Coal India slightly missed analyst expectations regarding its topline but surpassed expectations in terms of its bottom line in the January-March quarter.

On May 2, Coal India's shares on BSE closed trading 0.5 percent lower at Rs 452 apiece.

The company's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) rose percent to Rs 13,656.1 crore in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year over Rs 11,624.1 crore in the year-ago period. The EBITDA margin stood at 36.5 percent in the reporting quarter compared to 30.5 percent in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

Coal India Ltd accounts for over 80 percent of domestic coal output.

The company said raw coal production was at 241.751 million tonnes during the quarter, up from 224.16 million tonnes in the comparable quarter last year.

Offtake of raw coal stood at 201.665 million tonnes against 186.877 million tonnes in the year-ago quarter.

Employee benefit expenses fell 20.3 percent YoY to Rs 13,536.2 crore compared to Rs 16983.82 crore a year ago. Contractual expenses jumped 15.7 percent from a year ago to Rs 8,145.6 crore up from Rs 7,039.5 crore. Finance cost advanced 19 percent YoY to Rs 232.2 crore from Rs 195.07 crore a year ago.

Additionally, higher volume sales by 8.5 MTs despite lower average realization under FSA resulted in a net impact of around Rs 1,066.5 crores in Q4. FSA sales increased to 175.94 MTs in Q4 FY’24 compared to 167.45 MTs in the preceding fiscal’s Q4, with a realization per tonne of coal under FSA category of Rs. 1,535.5, a fall of 1 percent, compared to Rs 1,550 per tonne in Q4 FY’23. For FY24, the realization per tonne of coal under e-auction was Rs 2,545.01, which is a significant decrease from Rs 4,525.69 per tonne in corresponding quarter last year.