Mumbai, Jan. 17: Reliance Industries today reported that its turnover in the nine months from April to December 2007 had topped Rs 1 trillion — a 13 per cent increase over the level of Rs 89,078 crore in the year-ago period.

The nine-month turnover of Rs 100,572 crore was buttressed by a strong performance in the refining business.

Net profit — after taking into account a one-time gain arising from the sale of a 4.01 per cent stake in Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL) in November — rose 162 per cent to Rs 8,079 crore for the third quarter on revenues of Rs 35,580 crore, which was in line with market expectations.

In November last year, RIL sold 18.04 crore shares in RPL from its 75 per cent holding and raised Rs 4,023 crore.

However, RIL today said that during the third quarter, there was an exceptional income of Rs 4,733 crore, primarily representing gains arising out of the RPL transaction. Although RIL did not elaborate on the reasons behind this difference of Rs 710 crore, a company official said it had sold an additional 0.61 per cent in RPL during the period.

The bourses were not overjoyed by the 162 per cent increase in net profit and clobbered the stock, which fell 3.3 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange to close at Rs 2,996.25.

Observers said excluding the gains arising from the RPL transaction, RIL’s net profit only showed a rise of 26 per cent at Rs 3,882 crore against Rs 3,081 crore last year.

An analyst said the petrochemicals business had turned in disappointing results. During the period, petrochemical revenues came down to Rs 12,706 crore from Rs 13,145 crore in the year-ago period. Petrochemcials production grew just 4 per cent to 14.5 million tonnes.

It was the refining business that buoyed performance at the country’s largest private sector company. Refining revenues grew to Rs 26,154 crore from Rs 20,870 crore and gross refining margins (GRMs) were strong at $15.4 per barrel. GRM is the difference between the value of petroleum products produced and the price of crude oil.

During the nine-month period, the refinery processed 23.7 million tonnes and achieved an operating rate of 96 per cent.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of RIL, said, “I am happy to report that Reliance continues to surpass previous records in financial performance. The new growth platforms around oil and gas, organised retailing and agro-retail initiatives are gathering momentum and the initial response to these initiatives has been very encouraging. Each of these initiatives addresses India’s economic and social imperatives.”