Mumbai, Oct 16 (IANS): Reliance Industries on Friday reported a record consolidated net profit of Rs.12,942 crore ($2 billion) for the six-month period ended September 30, which is an 8.5 percent jump over last year. For the second quarter, the profit was up 12.5 percent.

The revenues, however, were down 28.5 percent during the first half at Rs.158,181 crore. For the second quarter, the revenues were down 33.8 percent, at Rs.75,117 crore, the company reported in a filing with the stock exchanges.

On a standalone basis, the net profit increased by 14.3 percent to Rs.6,561 crore ($1 billion).

In consolidated accounting, the numbers of both the company and its subsidiaries are considered, while on a standalone basis only the company's own numbers are taken into account and not of its subsidiaries.

"We achieved record level of EBITDA (earning before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) and profits for the quarter, underscoring our ability to optimally utilize our assets across the value chain to leverage favourable market conditions," chairman Mukesh Ambani said.

"Refining business performance was notable as it benefited from a combination of high utilisation levels, advantageous crude market opportunities and strong global fuels demand. Petrochemicals performance reflects strong volume growth, product mix improvement and lower energy costs."

He also said the retail arm achieved a milestone of Rs.5,000-crore quarterly turnover mark for the first time and that its petcoke gasification facility and ethylene cracker complex remained on track for its planned 2016 start-up.

"In digital services, we have substantially completed the network roll-out across the country and initiated the process of beta testing of our network and platforms."

The company said Jio Infocomm launched Wi-Fi hot spots across several locations in the country and entered into accords with some of the state and local authorities to provide such services.

Roll-out of last-mile connectivity for its fibre-to-the-home business is also on. The company, which holds a pan-India unified licence for all net-based services, including voice and data, said that the initial test results on the network were positive.

"The company expects to ramp up its beta program over the next few weeks to further optimise the network, prior to commercial launch of operations. Financial year 2016-17 is projected to be the first year of commercial operations for Reliance Jio," the company said.

It has also filed for sharing of spectrum in the 800MHz band with Reliance Communications across seven circles to department of telecommunications (DoT).

Reliance Jio aims to offer end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, communication, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment.

Other highlights of the announcements on Friday:

- Standalone net profit at Rs. 6,561 crore in second quarter, up 3.8 year-on-year

- Seven-year-high gross refining margin of $10.6 per barrel

- Crude processing at 17.1 million tonnes at operating rate of 110 percent

- Gross refining margin at $10.6 per barrel, highest in seven years

- Retail revenue turnover growth of 22 percent year-on-year