>Reliance Industries (Macquarie Research)

Gas delay hurts more than crude cut

Event

We have revised our earnings forecasts to take account of actual prices in

2008 and changes to our oil price forecast for 2009 onwards. We have also

factored in the delay in the KG-D6 gas production and now expect commercial

sales of gas to start in April 2009 (previous expectation January 2009).



Impact

Cut in estimates. The delay in gas production and the cut to oil price forecast

result in an 8% and 6% cut to our FY09 and FY10 earnings forecasts,

respectively. RIL’s proposed gas price of US$4.2/mmbtu translates to an oil

equivalent price of US$25/boe. As this is significantly below the current oil

price and our forecast oil price, we do not envisage a cut in RIL’s gas prices.

Our cashflow estimates are reduced by 8% and 4% for FY09E and FY10E,

respectively. RIL should achieve a net cash position by FY12E.

We are also cutting our PAT estimates for 3Q FY09E to Rs36bn (-8% YoY), as

we believe that refining production has been lower than our earlier estimates.



To see full report : RIL