Petronet LNG Limited (PETRONET) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, a very good afternoon to all of you. I'm Rajan Kapur, Company Secretary of Petronet LNG Limited. It's my privilege to welcome all of you to the 23rd Annual General Meeting of Petronet LNG Limited through video conferencing. In view of the challenges and risks posed by COVID-19 pandemic, and keeping in mind the safety and security of the shareholders and employees of the company, we are holding this Annual General Meeting through video conferencing in terms of the relaxed provisions of Companies Act 2013, that, with rules to various circulars issued by Ministry of Corporate Affairs and SEBI LODR Regulation 2015. Before we take up the agenda of the meeting, let me have the pleasure of introducing Chairman and Directors of the Board. On my right, Shri. Tarun Kapoorji, Secretary to the Ministry of Petroleum Natural Gas, Non-Executive Chairman of the company. To his right, Shri. Akshay Kumar Singhji, Managing Director and CEO of Petronet LNG Limited. On my left, Shri. Vinod Kumar Mishraji, Director, Finance and CFO of Petronet LNG Limited. On the right side of our MD and CEO, Shri. Pramod Narangji, Director, Technical of the company. We have the promoter directors who've joined through online, Shri. Manoj Jainji, Chairman and Managing Director, GAIL, who is Nominee Director, GAIL of the company. Shri. Arun Kumar Singhji, Director, Marketing; BPCL, who is the Nominee Director, BPCL of the company. Shri. Sidhartha Pradhanji, who is Independent Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee and Nomination Remuneration Committee of the Board. Shri. SK Srivastavaji, Independent Director; Dr. Siddhartha Shekhar Singh, Independent Director; Shri. Arun Kumarji, Independent Director and Chairman of the Stakeholders Relationship Committee of the Board; Ambassador Bhaswati Mukherjee madam, Independent Director. I am pleased to inform that Shri. Hitesh Garg is attending from M/s T R Chadha & Company chartered accountants, the statutory auditors of the company for the financial year 2021, Shri. Sankalp Wadhwa, M/s Chandra Wadhwa & Company cost accountants, the cost auditors of your company for the financial year 2020-'21. Shri. Sachin Agarwal from M/s Agarwal S. & Associates, the scrutinizer for the 23rd Annual General Meeting of the company. Shri. A. N. Kukreja, Practicing Company Secretary, the Secretary and auditor of the company for the financial year 2021. The register of directors and KMP and their shareholding and register of contracts, or arrangements are available for the inspection of the members during the conduct of the meeting. I also welcome the representatives of our promoter companies from GAIL, IOCL, BPCL and ONGC. Before we start the proceeding, I would like to mention certain necessary procedures and technical points. The facility of joining the AGM through video conferencing is being made available to members on a first come first serve basis. All members who have joined this meeting are by default placed on mute mode by the host to avoid any disturbance arising from background noise and to ensure smooth and seamless conduct of the meeting. Once the question-and-answer session starts, the Chairman will announce the name of the shareholders who have registered as speaker shareholders one by one. Since the quorum is present, I request Chairman sir to start the meeting. Thank you. Chairman, sir, please.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I have great pleasure in welcoming you to 23rd Annual General Meeting of Petronet LNG Limited. Company Secretary has informed that the quorum is present. I call the meeting to order. Notice of this Annual General Meeting, directors report of the company, along with financial statements and independent auditors' report for the financial year 2021 has been with you for some time. With your permission, I consider them as having been read. Further, the Company's financial statements are unqualified. Under Corporate Governance, Audit Report and Secretarial audit report for the financial year 2021, it is stated that during the year for one day that is March 31, 2021, the composition of the Board of Directors was less than the required number in terms of Regulation 17 with respect to independent women Director. The management replies to the above observation is contained in the annual report 2021, stating that ambassador, Bhaswati Mukherjee has been appointed as Independent Woman Director on the Board of the company with effect from 13th August 2021. In view of the above, the composition of the Board is in consonance with the provisions of the Companies Act 2013 and SEBI Regulation 2015.

Now I request the Chairman sir to address the shareholders, sir, kindly, please.

Dear Shareholders, member of the Board, distinguished audience, on behalf of the Board of Directors of Petronet LNG Limited, I feel delighted in extending my warm greetings and welcome to all of you on the 23rd Annual General Meeting of the company. Your presence in this important meeting is the testimony of your strong support and faith in the company, and this inspires us to achieve newer milestones of success. Due to continued impact of COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitates adoption of safety precautions to arrest its spread, we are once again meeting on virtual platform like last year. At the outset, I wish to express solidarity with all those who have lost their loved ones, and I wish a speedy recovery to those who are infected with this COVID-19 pandemic. I also hope and pray that each one of you and your family and friends stay safe and secure in these testing times. Having seen widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is our individual and collective responsibility to adopt and promote usage of safety precautions and push for large-scale vaccination, as it is the only reliable way to fight our way out of this pandemic. Esteemed shareholders, the annual report, along with the audited stand-alone as well as consolidated financial statements of the company for the year ending 31st March 2021, together with the reports of directors and auditors thereon has already been circulated to you. With your kind permission, I take them as read. Now with your permission to proceed, I'd like to highlight the developments in the global arena, Indian economy and LNG sector that has bearing on your company at large. To begin with, let me first briefly describe the global economy and its impact on world LNG industry. The year 2020 was one of the most challenging years for the international community as the entire world faced diverse challenges and major disruptions in global economy, owing to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, global energy demand fell by 4%, the largest decline since World War II and the largest ever absolute decline. However, LNG trade in 2020 still witnessed a growth of 0.4% with trade increasing from 354.7 million metric tons in year 2019 to 356.1 million metric tons in the year 2020. This was mostly supported by increased exports from U.S. and Australia with Asia Pacific and Asia importing the most volumes in 2020, thereby accounting for more than 70% of the global LNG imports. While the above growth appears to be marginal, the increase in volume reflects the resilience of LNG industry even in turbulent times of the year 2020, a year which saw losses to global GDP of several trillion dollars as economies got impacted due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. With rise in global vaccination, awareness of COVID-19 and growth in global economy due to resumption in industrial and commercial activities, demand for energy and thus consumption of natural gas, including LNG is expected to grow substantially in the year 2021. On a macro level, the LNG market is coming, few years is projected to remain a buyer's market with buyers taking advantage of affordable prices. However, factors like opportunistic buying, balancing out the pandemic's negative impact on demand, weather conditions in northern hemisphere, a tighter freight market, coupled with seasonal demand fluctuations will always play a key role in determining the LNG price. In recent times, extreme volatility is seen in the spot LNG market price due to sudden spike in LNG demand due to adverse weather conditions and narrowing in the arbitrage rate between European and Asian destined LNG cargoes, and same is projected to continue for coming few months. It may be worth noting that in spite of all such uncertainties arising due to COVID-19 pandemic, India registered substantial increase of 11% in LNG imports totaling to 26.63 million metric tons of LNG in 2020 as compared to 20.03 billion metric tons in year 2019, maintaining its position as the fourth largest importer of LNG globally. LNG markets witnessed unprecedented swing in LNG prices from record low of $1.83 per million metric British thermal unit in April 2020 to record high price of $32.54 million metric British thermal units for every delivery in the first half of January 2021. As per IMF world economic outlook, July 2021, Indian economy is projected to grow at 9.5% in the year 2021 against growth projection of 6% of global economy in the year 2021. The Indian gas market is largely dependent on LNG imports and RLNG supplies now make up to more than half of the gas consumed in the country at around 57% in the financial year 2021 with domestic supplies being 43% during the same period. Government of India has set a target of increasing share of natural gas from present 6.31% to 15% in the primary energy basket by the year 2030. This transforms into a fourfold increase in gas consumption from the present level of around 155 million metric standard cubic meters per day to over 600 million standard cubic meters per day by the year 2030. In view of [ all this ] LNG will continue to play a pivotal role in India's energy industry, which will be a very positive scenario for your company. The Government of India has also taken significant steps to develop the Indian gas market and make it more transparent. A gas exchange has already been established in the country in which your company is a member. The gas exchange will enable gas price discovery through demand-supply fundamentals, and is expected to secure equitable distribution and increased availability of natural gas by creating a free gas market to ushering gas-based economy. To promote LNG as transportation fuel, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has published draft LNG policy on 17th February 2021, wherein it aims to create virtual pipelines of LNG, promote LNG supply through trucks, and its use in transport fuel, conversion of long-haul, heavy-duty trucks to LNG and establishing 1,000 LNG stations. As per the said policy, marketing and sale of LNG as a vehicle fuel shall be a free activity. On the regulatory front, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board has undertaken an ambitious program of bidding gas infrastructure projects in the country. Now with this gas grid expansion and end user connectivity by various players who have won the bids for national gas pipelines and for CGD development in various geographical areas in past bidding round and upcoming 11th round of CGD bidding will enhance gas usage substantially. PNGRB has also through public notice of 2020, clarified that any entity can set up an LNG station for dispensing LNG in liquid state to the transport sector in any geographical area or anywhere else, even if it is not the authorized entity for that geographical area. With this clarification of PNGRB, your company is encouraged to develop LNG dispensing infrastructure across the country. As regards to performance of your company, you would be pleased to note that in spite of COVID-19, the company achieved a throughput of 849 trillion British thermal units at Dahej terminal during the financial year 2020-2021, as compared to 885 trillion British thermal units during the financial year 2019-2020. The Kochi terminal supplies 47 trillion British thermal units of RLNG in financial year 2021 as compared to 43 trillion British thermal unit in financial year 2019-2020. I also take this opportunity to inform you that your company has formed a new subsidiary named Petronet Energy Limited for taking up, gassing up and cooling down services, LNG bunkering related shipping activities amongst other activities. Further, your company is also working on expansion of Dahej plant capacity from 17.5 million metric tons per annum to 22.5 million metric tons per annum in a phased manner, along with exploring new ideas and initiatives, namely RLNG terminal on East Coast petrochemical projects, setting up about 100 LNG loading base for truck filling at its existing and proposed terminals and creation of 1,000 LNG dispensing infrastructure to cater to LNG demand in automotive, industrial, commercial, mining equipment and CGD sectors across India. Your company is also working on setting up of compressed biogas plant across various locations in the country with initial focus on Haryana, Western UP and Punjab. Your company is also in talks with various municipal corporations of large cities for MSW-based CBG plants. In parallel, your company has received 27 LOIs from OMCs, CGD companies for setting up of CBG plants under sustainable alternative towards affordable transportation scheme of Government of India. Good corporate governance is another landmark of your company. The company has a well-established and robust framework to deliver good corporate performance. It goes beyond the standard described by various laws and targets to provide a clean work culture. Your company has been achieving consistent growth in its financials and is rated as one of the leading energy companies in India. It holds a unique place as an LNG importer in the country. It enjoys a good rapport with the leading communities and is rated highly by credit rating agencies, both domestic and international. Your company's domestic credit rating is maintained at the highest level, that is AAA by Indian credit rating agencies. Your company's international rating is at par with sovereign rating of the country at Baa3 by Moody's. During the financial year 2021, your company achieved a turnover of INR26,023 crores. The net profit of the company stood at INR2,949 crores. Keeping in view the good financial performance, the Board of Directors of your company are happy to recommend final dividend of INR3.5 per equity share of INR10 each, 35% on the paid up share capital of the company for the year ended March 31, 2021. This is in addition to a special interim dividend of INR8 per equity shares of INR10 each, 80% on the paid-up share capital of the company, paid by the company in November 2020. Beyond business and sustainability and corporate social responsibility fronts, your company fully understands its responsibility towards the society and has been constantly striving and contributing its bit towards social development. In its behavior to be more focused towards its social goals, your company is developing a more structured approach to enhance access to quality health care, enrich the life of communities in need, welfare of the war widows, environmental causes and enhanced educational facilities across geographies in the country. Your company is implementing short, medium and long-term strategies to channelize the resources in an organized manner so as to drive maximum socioeconomic impact from the targeted approach. In line with its social goals as enumerated about, your company has identified several projects in the areas of health care, education, welfare of the war widows, skill development environment, sports, Swachh Bharat, et cetera, and has spent the annual CSR budget in a progressive and sustainable manner and complied with the statutory provisions in this regard. Your company has stood by the nation against the unprecedented crisis due to outbreak of COVID-19 by taking up several initiatives from time to time. While all projects have been carefully chosen giving utmost importance to quality of CSR spending instead of compliance only, many projects have been outstanding in their overall impact. Before I conclude, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the company, I wish to convey earnest thanks to all shareholders for their continued support and trust in the Board of Directors of your company. I would like to thank my colleagues on the Board for their valuable contribution in steering the company to higher levels of achievement. All these achievements were possible due to the hard work put in by the dedicated and talented workforce of the company who form the team PLL. We are thankful to the invaluable guidance and strong support provided by various stakeholders, including the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural gas, company's promoters, Gujarat Maritime Board, Cochin Port Trust, various consumers and associations. The Board of Directors thank all the stakeholders once again, and hope it will continue to receive your constant support in the years to come and facilitate the company to deliver in terms of profitability, expansion, new ventures, technological expense and value creation for its shareholders. Jai Hind. Thank you. [ Core companies ] actually briefs about e-voting, read the business of the meeting and also inform the process of e-voting. In respect of these businesses, I would like to inform that the company has made all efforts feasible under the circumstances to enable members to participate and vote on the items being considered in the meeting.

I have a pleasure to share that pursuant to the provisions of Section 108 of the Companies Act, 2013, Rule 20 of the company's management and administration rule 2014 and Regulation 44 of the SEBI listing obligations and disclosure requirements, regulations, 2015, the company had provided remote e-voting facility to the shareholders. The shareholders holding shares as on cutoff date that is 21st September 2021 were entitled to vote on the proposed resolutions of this 23rd Annual General Meeting of the company. The remote e-voting period remained open from Friday, 24th September 2021 at 9 A.M. IST and ended on Monday 27th, September 2021 at 5 P.M. IST. Those who have already cast their votes through remote e-voting are not allowed to vote again as far the statutory provision. Facility for voting at the meeting is also available, also provided for members present here through video conference, InstaPoll and who have not voted yet. Members may please go to the voting page of Central Depository Services Limited's e-voting website and cast their vote, while at the same time watch the proceedings of the meeting. Shri. Sachin Agarwal from M/s Agarwal S. and Associates Practicing Company Secretary, has been appointed as the scrutinizer by the Board of Directors of the company to scrutinize the voting process, both through remote e-voting and by InstaPoll during Annual General Meeting, in a fair and transparent manner. I would request him to please ensure the procedure and statutory requirements with respect to voting to have same, in fair and transparent manner. Now I will read the items and concerning resolution falling under ordinary and special businesses. These resolutions are placed before the members in accordance with the Article sophistication, the Companies Act 2013, rules made thereunder and SEBI LODR regulations 2015. Ordinary business, the item #1 is to receive, consider and adopt the audited standalone financial statements of the company for the financial year ended 31st March 2021, and the audited consolidated financial statements of the company for the financial year ended 31st March 2021, together with the reports of Board of Directors and statutory auditors thereon. Now I will lead the resolution. Resolved that the audited stand-alone as well as consolidated financial statements of the company for the year ended 31st March 2021, and the reports of Board of Directors, along with the annexures they are to, and the statutory auditors thereon, thee and are hereby received, approved and adopted. Item #2 in the ordinary business to consider declaration of final dividend on equity shares for the financial year 2021. Resolved that final dividend at the rate of INR3.50 per share of the face value of INR10 each of the company as recommended by the Board of Directors for the financial year 2021 be and is hereby approved and declared clear. Item #3 to appoint a Director in place of Shri. Sanjeev Kumar, Director, Identification number 03600655, who retires by rotation and being eligible, offers himself for reappointment as Director of the company. Resolved that Shri. Sanjeev Kumar, Director, Indication number 03600655, who retires by rotation and being eligible, [ D&Ds ] is hereby reappointed as Director in the capacity of Nominee Director, GMB/GoG of the company, liable to retire by rotation. Item #4 to appoint a director in place of Shri. Manoj Jain, Director, Identification number 07556033, who retires by rotation and being eligible offers himself for reappointment as Director of the company. Resolved that, Shri. Manoj Jain, Director, Identification number 07556033, who retires by rotation and being eligible, [ D&D ] hereby reappointed as Director in the capacity of Nominee Director GAIL of the company liable to retire by rotation. Now I will read the special business. Items #5 to #10 pertains to special businesses and the resolutions in this regard are given in the notice to the 23rd Annual General Meeting, which is part of the annual report 2021. Item #5 is to appoint Shri. Pramod Narang, Director Identification 07792813 as Director, Technical of the company. Item #6, to appoint Shri. Akshay Kumar Singh, Director identification number 03579974 as Managing Director and CEO of the company. Item #7, to appoint Shri. Subhash Kumar, Director Identification number 07904545 as Director in the capacity of Nominee Director, ONGC of the company. Item #8, to appoint Ambassador Bhaswati Mukherjee, Director Identification number 07173244 as Independent Director of the company. Item #9 to approve related party transactions entered or to be entered by the company during the financial year '22-'23. Item #10 to approve payment of commission on profits to directors of the company commencing from the financial year '21-'22. Now I will explain the process of e-voting and procedure for asking the questions during conduct of the meeting. The e-voting for the members entitled and who have not cast their vote through remote e-voting can cast their votes through CDS' e-voting platform. I request all the members present and entitled to vote to participate in the e-voting process for which they are given 30 minutes to enable members to cast their votes. For queries, only the audio of the speaker shareholders will thereafter be unmuted by the host. To start speaking, the shareholders is requested to click the video on button only once, and wait till the video is on. If the shareholder is not able to join through video for any reason, the shareholder can speak through the audio mode. While speaking, we would request the speaker to use the earphones so that he/she is clearly audible, minimize any noise in the background, ensure that WiFi is not connected to any other devices, no other background applications are running, and there is proper lighting to have a good video experience. If there is a connectivity problem at the speaker shareholders' end, we would invite the next speaker to join. Once the connectivity improves, the speaker shareholder may be called again to speak once the other shareholders who have registered complete their turn. We would request the shareholders to be slow and loud while speaking, while asking their questions so as to capture them correctly. We would like to request the shareholders to limit their speech to 3 minutes. During the AGM, if a member faces any technical issue, he may contact the helpline number mentioned in the notice of the AG.

May I request the members to ask the questions, if any, and confine their questions to the business of the Annual General Meeting, annual report and the accounts of the company for the financial year 2021. Each member is requested to conclude within 3 minutes in order to enable as many members to raise queries. Personal issues, grievances, matters relating to policy and other general queries, if any, may be taken up at other appropriate forums to save time for meaningful interaction on the business in hand. Each member shall identify his name and the folio DP and client ID number before raising the query. The queries received from the shareholders during conduct of the meeting and who have got registered themselves as speaker shall be answered suitably via e-mail.

Now I would request the host to kindly start the query session. They can unmute one-by-one the shareholders who have registered as speaker shareholders.

[Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language]

Bose, please take the next speaker. Bose, please take the next speaker, shareholder. If there is no other speaker shareholder, kindly tell us. Mr. Ravi?

Respected Chairman, MD, Honorable Board of Directors, employees of company and fellow shareholders. Sir, Kochi is running at extremely low capacity, so when things will be normal for Kochi utilization? Need your detailed commentary on this matter. Second, now gas prices are very volatile. So how things are moving currently? Are you finding any problem in routine business due to volatility in gas prices? What is CapEx plan for financial year '22 and '23? I read full annual report and tell you that you have done hard work to prepare this. After reading annual report, we can learn gas business very well. Will you do superb in time to come? Can you tell how much growth we may expect in company for next 5-year time frame? That is my question, sir.

Thank you for asking very elaborate and a very pertinent question. So first, you talked about Kochi. Kochi utilization is low at the moment. And you all know that utilization largely depends on pipeline connectivity. So pipeline connectivity is gradually improving. One major pipeline got commissioned recently, and therefore, the utilization has gone up, and it's likely to go up further. Exact dates cannot be given because it will largely depend on the customers. But generally, one can say that in the coming, say, maybe around 2 years, things should look up, because we expect several other pipelines also to get commissioned. Then you talked about volatility in the gas price. Now volatility in the gas price is affecting everyone, it's affecting the customers very largely. Your company has a benefit of long-term contracts. So therefore, is able to sustain and also provide LNG to the various customers in the country. I will now ask the MD who is here with me to give you information on these 2 points also, further information, and also on the CapEx plan, which you wanted to know.

Good afternoon. On the Kochi utilization plans, as you know that we are operating at a 12%, 13% capacity utilization. But in year 2021, at the third quarter and starting of the fourth quarter, connectivity to Mangalore was established, and that is the reason the overall utilization in 2021 was 18%. This first quarter of this financial year, it has gone to 23%, and we expect that in coming one year, we will be able to improve the utilization to 30% to 35%. Nevertheless, the second leg of the pipeline connectivity that is Mangalore, which is a 250-kilometer leftover pipeline, the job is going on by the GAIL, and once that is connected, the Kochi terminal will be connected to the entire national gas grid, and we hope that in the coming 2 years' time, capacity utilization will go to the full swing of 100% once it is connected to the national gas grid. As far as the CapEx plan is there, we have a very detailed 5-year CapEx plan worked out broadly that we will be expanding the capacity of Dahej terminal as in the opening speech of the Chairman, it was mentioned that the project capacity of 17.5 million tons will be at 22.5 million tons. We are also constructing 2 LNG tanks at Dahej, for that already work order has been awarded, a positive INR1,200 crores of the CapEx, and work will start very soon in coming 1 and 1.5 months. We are going to construct the third [ JP ] at the Dahej, we have a CapEx plan of almost INR10,000 crores for the petrochemical plant. We have a land at Dahej, almost 50 hectare land is available, and we are in the process of doing the detailed financial feasibility report, technical and master plan for petrochemical plant. We are also aggressively working on setting up east coast on FSRU-based LNG terminal and setting up almost 1,000 small-scale LNG dispensing stations across the country. Altogether, it will be to the tune of INR40,000 crore CapEx plan in coming 5 years. So it will be gradually in the coming 5 years, we have worked out the planning of the CapEx. And it is going to align with our business statement. As far as the volatility of the price is concerned, we know that at present, the gas prices in international market, the spot prices are quite high. But it is not a sustainable price, and it is expected that very soon, it will stabilize because if it continues in that fashion, there will be some demand [ discussions ]. So we don't foresee that anything of that sorts is going to happen. And hopefully, the prices will stabilize, and the LNG demand across the globe, which is forecasted quite high, and for India, we expect that LNG is going to play a major role for meeting our energy demand of the country. Hope I am able to clarify your query, Mr. Ravi.

Now I request Shri. Rajan Kapur, Company Secretary to brief about the manner of declaration of results for voting and also to propose vote of thanks.

Let me brief about the manner of declaration of results of voting. Casting of votes and its verification will take some time. The results of voting on each resolution shall be determined by adding the votes conducted through remote e-voting and at AGM through InstaPoll in favor or against a resolution. On receipt of the scrutinizer's report, the results of voting shall be declared latest by 30th September 2021. The results to be declared for each resolution shall indicate the votes through electronic voting, and would be immediately intimated to the BSE and NSE. The results can also be uploaded on the website of the company and CDSL and displayed on the Notice Board at the register office of the company, with the respective reports of scrutinizer for electronic voting and voting at AGM. As requested by Chairman sir, now I propose the vote of thanks with your permission. It is my great pleasure, privilege to propose a vote of thanks to all the members present who have spared their valuable time to attend this meeting and made their great contribution for which the company is extremely thankful to them. I also thank the representatives of promoter companies who have given their valuable time to attend this meeting. I express my sincere thanks to honorable Chairman sir, functional directors, nominee directors, and independent directors for their prudent steering of the company. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I sincerely thank and wish to place on record the appreciation of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, State of Gujarat and Kerala, promoters of the company, LNG suppliers, gas offtakers and consumers of RLNG, auditors, lenders and employees of the company for their whole-hearted cooperation and their support. We want to express our deep-felt thanks and best wishes to all the shareholders for the continued support and the trust they have reposed in the management. We look forward to a better future and further growth of the company. Thank you.

Since there is no other business to transact, I declare the meeting closed. I convey thanks to all of you on my behalf and on behalf of your Board of Directors for sparing your valuable time to attend this meeting.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. [Foreign Language]