Mukesh Ambani

India’s Reliance Industries posted expectation-beating quarterly profits as earnings from its key refining and petrochemical operations offset the impact of a sharp fall in global oil prices.

The Mumbai-based energy firm owned by Mukesh Ambani, India’s wealthiest man, also benefited from a near 50-percent drop in the cost of raw materials to post a 12.5 percent profit rise for the second quarter.

Reliance said in a statement that consolidated profit for the three months to September 30 soared to 67.20 billion rupees ($1.0 billion) from 59.72 billion rupees a year ago.

A survey of 12 analysts by Bloomberg had expected Reliance to report just a 2.4 percent rise in profits to 58.8 billion rupees.

Ambani, Reliance’s chairman, said in the statement that the company’s “refining business performance was notable.”

He added that the petrochemicals side of the business saw “strong volume growth, product mix improvement and lower energy costs.”

Reliance’s gross refining margin — earnings from each barrel of crude — leapt nearly 28 percent to $10.60 in the quarter just ended from $8.3 a year ago.

It was up from $10.40 per barrel in the first quarter.

Reliance’s revenues for the second quarter slipped 33.8 percent to 751.17 billion rupees ($11.5 billion) from 1,133.96 billion rupees a year ago.

The robust margins and lower raw material costs, helped Reliance negate the impact of a 35 percent dip in its export earnings.

Although Reliance derives most of its earnings from its massive energy operations, it is trying to diversify and owns a supermarket chain and a telecommunications company.

Reliance Jio Infocomm has already taken billions of dollars from its parent for purchasing wireless spectrum and other infrastructure and is expected to offer 4G mobile services from 2016.

Friday’s statement did not offer any update on the Jio launch date, which was originally scheduled to take place before the end of this year.

Meanwhile, Reliance’s supermarket chain added 110 new stores across India taking the total count to 2,857, the company said.

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