Reliance profits boosted by stronger refining margin

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a stronger-than-expected 12.5 percent rise in its fiscal second-quarter profit as margins in its core refining business rose to a seven-year high.

Consolidated net profit rose to 67.2 billion rupees ($1.04 billion) for the three months to Sept. 30 from 59.72 billion rupees a year earlier, Reliance said in a statement.

Analysts on average had expected a net profit of 59.47 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

But Reliance's revenue fell more than a third from a year earlier to 751.17 billion rupees as a plunge in crude prices put pressure on refined fuel prices.

Controlled by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, Reliance is India's second-largest company by market value, and runs the world's largest refinery complex.

The company, which gets most of its revenue from its refining and petrochemicals businesses, has been expanding into consumer businesses such as retail and telecoms to aid growth.

Gross refining margins for the quarter rose to $10.6 a barrel, the highest in seven years, from $8.3 a barrel a earlier.

Reliance, whose telecoms business is building India's biggest fourth-generation (4G) broadband network and considering a December launch, said on Friday it would ramp up its pre-launch test over the next few weeks.

The company's retail division will soon start selling its own brand of 4G LTE smartphones under LYF brand name, it said.

Ahead of the results, Reliance shares closed 0.94 percent higher in a Mumbai market that gained 0.72 percent.

($1 = 64.8550 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Clara Ferreira Marques and Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Jane Merriman)