Gas stocks in India: list of 12 gas companies

The page takes every company whose industry is gas, a part of the Oil, Gas and Consumable Fuels sector. Refiners and oil producers are in other industries.

The group is small and mixed: a state-owned pipeline company, city gas retailers, an LNG terminal operator and a liquid gas logistics business.

Natural gas is produced at home or imported as LNG (liquefied gas). Terminals turn it back into gas, pipelines carry it, and city gas distributors supply homes and factories through pipes (PNG) or vehicles as compressed gas (CNG).

A terminal is paid for volumes handled, a pipeline earns a tariff for the gas it carries, and a distributor earns the margin between its gas cost and its selling price.

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), set up under an Act of 2006, regulates the transport, distribution, marketing and sale of natural gas, though not its production. It also authorises the companies that build and run city gas networks.

Market cap is share price times shares outstanding. P/E is market cap divided by the profit of the last four quarters (two half-years for companies that report twice a year) that belongs to the company's own shareholders.

ROCE, return on capital employed, is operating profit after depreciation, without other income and one-off items, as a percentage of net worth plus borrowings, leases not counted.

The 1D and 1Y columns are price changes adjusted for splits and bonuses, without dividends.

P/E and ROCE compare most closely between companies in the same part of the gas chain, since a distributor, a pipeline and a terminal operator have different costs and capital needs.