BW Communities

J.P.Morgan Rates RIL At Underweight

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[J.P.Morgan's re-initiated coverage of Reliance Industries, India's biggest energy conglomerate, with an "underweight" rating and a price target of Rs 650 citing a lack of earnings growth and high valuations. The investment bank added it had a "negative" outlook on Reliance's refining and petchem businesses, while "sustained" weakness in its downstream business would cause earnings downgrades. J.P.Morgan added Reliance's upstream outlook was "cloudy," saying it expected natural gas production to decline in the near-term. Reliance shares have risen 7.3 per cent year to date, heavily under-performing the 13.7 per cent gain in India's 50-share Nifty index. Shares rose 1.8 per cent to end at Rs 743.3 on Thursday. Reliance has been facing analyst ire for quite some time. Last week, Kotak cut its price target for the stock, citing "conflicting" company signals on the use of cash, "confusing" news from exploration and production, and "continuing weakness" in chemicals and refining margins. The brokerage cut its sum-of-the-parts target price to Rs 800 from Rs 830, while maintaining its "neutral" stance on Reliance Industries, becoming the latest investment house to deliver warnings about the company's earnings outlook. Kotak analyst Sanjeev Prasad further warned of risks from lower recoverable reserves from Reliance's KG D6 block, as well as declines in chemical margins for naphtha-based crackers. Reliance Industries shares have been hit hard in March, with the stock down 8.6 pwer cent, far above the 1.7 per cent fall in the Nifty index last month, due to worries about its earnings. With KG-D6 output hitting an all- time low, last week, Reliance Industries and its British partner BP plc submitted to the government a revised field development plan for enhancing gas production from MA field in the block. RIL-BP proposed to drill one gas production well on the MA oilfield in the eastern offshore KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block besides intervention jobs in at least two of the existing six wells on the fields, sources privy to the development said. MA is the only oil find made by RIL in the 7,645 square kilometre KG-D6 block. The field produces about 11,200 barrels a day of along and associated gas of 6.45 million cubic meters per day. MA field makes up for about one-fifth of the 34.09 mmcmd of current gas output from KG-D6 block. Sources said six wells had been drilled on MA field, of which one had to be closed because of water loading and sand ingress. RIL-BP plan to do workover (intervention activity involving invasive techniques to raise output) on the closed well and at least one more well facing similar problems. This together with a seventh well, which would only produce gas unlike the current five wells that produce both oil and gas, would help the field raise output to 8 mmcmd. MA field had begun oil production in September 2008 and gas in April 2009 and in 2010 had averaged 8 mmcmd of gas output. Sources said the revised FDP for MA field was submitted to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) in February and RIL-BP have made technical presentation. Also, RIL-BP are working on an integrated and capital efficient plan for block development, involving production from all the 18 gas discoveries in KG-D6. They projected first gas from R-Series, the third largest gas find in KG-D6 block, by 2015 and production from satellite fields by 2016 subject to timely regulatory approvals. RIL began production from Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) fields, the largest among the 18 gas and one oil find, in April 2009 but output has fallen from a peak of 54 million cubic meters per day in March 2010 to 27.64 mmcmd this month. Together with 6.45 mmcmd of gas production from D-26 or MA oil field in the same area, block output is 34.09 mmcmd. The plan would help in cost savings of over $1 billion due to integration and optimisation. In addition, un-incurred phase-II cost of D1&D3 field development plan ($3.1 billion out of total cost of $8.8 billion) would not be required to be spent, they said. Sources said RIL-BP plan to connect R-Series and four satellite fields, for which a $1.529 billion field development plan was approved by the government in January, to the existing infrastructure used to produce gas from D1&D3 and MA. Also, other satellite fields would be hooked up to these. R-series and four satellite fields alone have potential to add 30 mmscmd of output.