Upstream regulator DGH has suggested that the $1.235-billion investment of Reliance Industries should be disallowed over the Mukesh Ambani-run firm's failure to adhere to prestated drilling and gas production targets, but the oil ministry is yet to agree on the numbers.
The combined market valuation of top nine Sensex firms advanced by a whopping Rs 1.39 lakh crore with energy majors ONGC and RIL emerging as the star performers, while TCS saw a marginal dip last week when stock market recorded life-time highs.
The ministry had previously wanted to disallow $1.235 billion expenditure that RIL had incurred on putting production facilities at the Bay of Bengal gas fields but in the 7-page notice it sent to the company on May 2, the cost to be disallowed was put at $1.462 billion, sources privy to the development said.
India's most valued company Reliance Industries is building partnership with the US in many of the sunrise areas like life-sciences, biotechnology and retail.
The company discovered 3.75 trillion cubic feet of in-place gas reserves under coal seams in Sohagpur coal bed methane (CBM) blocks in Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh, senior officials said.
After Reliance Industries announced the record date for its demerger scheme, its counter is now abuzz with activity with a clutch of investors resorting to block deals for acquiring over 5.03 crore shares.
The Reliance Industries Ltd board, under the chairmanship of Mukesh Ambani, on Monday fully supported the buyback of shares brushing aside the criticism and objections raised by vice-chairman Anil Ambani
Reliance Industries will account for about 40 per cent of the country's energy production in the next 18 to 24 months, putting the company on track to earn a quarter of its profit from oil and gas production, from 5 per cent now.
Nine of the top-10 most valued domestic companies together added a whopping Rs 2,22,591.01 crore in market valuation last week, with heavyweights RIL, TCS and HDFC twins gaining the most. During the last week, the BSE benchmark Sensex rallied 1,690.88 points or 3.21 per cent. The index reached its all-time high of 54,717.24 on August 5. Barring Bajaj Finance, rest nine companies -- Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HDFC Bank, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), ICICI Bank, HDFC, State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank -- logged gains.
Tata Consultancy Services had dethroned RIL from the pole position in market-valuation charts on December 30, the last trading session of 2011, but its leadership position proved to be short-lived and it slipped to the second position in Monday's trading session -- the first of 2012.
Reliance Industries Ltd's focus on the next hypergrowth opportunities in clean tech and its path to decarbonisation has the potential to spur re-rating, raises clarity on investment cycles and reduces investor worry, brokerages said. RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani at the company's 'Green AGM' on Thursday committed Rs 75,000 crore over the next three years to set up an integrated Green Energy Giga Complex across 5,000 acres in Jamnagar, Gujarat which will contain four giga factories. The complex, which would be one of the world's largest renewable manufacturing facilities, would have an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory, an energy storage battery factory, electrolyser manufacturing for hydrogen production, and manufacturing of fuel cells so that hydrogen can be used in transportation.
Within 24 hours of the brothers Ambani deciding on a ceasefire, the stock market and Reliance pundits are out with their calculators to figure out the financial implication of ending the non-compete terms five years in advance and the loss that Anil Ambani's Reliance Natural Resources Limited would incur post the Supreme Court verdict.
Reliance Industries is in talks with global energy majors, like British Gas of the UK, Chevron Corp of the US, Exxon and Shell for a possible stake sale in its Krishna-Godavari basin gas fields. RIL is looking for a strategic partner for its KG-D6 gas block to get deep sea exploration technology. The percentage of stake to be divested has not been firmed up & may depend on the value that the partner was bringing in. The block contains over 50trillion cubic feet of gas reserve
GAIL India chairman and managing director B C Tripathi said the availability and possibility of gas has changed with the change in government policy.
INX Media, the company set up by Indrani Mukherjea, wife of ex-Star Group CEO Peter Mukherjea, has roped in three top advertisers -- Vodafone, Reliance Industries and Future Group -- for their Hindi entertainment channel 9X. Each of these advertisers are believed to be paying Rs 35-40 crore (Rs 350-400 million) for a three-year contract. The television broadcaster has formed Club INX, which will include corporates keen to advertise on the channel.
Mukesh Ambani-led RIL on Tuesday said its newly acquired internet arm Infotel has paid Rs 12,847.77 crore (Rs 128.477 billion) it bid for pan-India Broadband Wireless Access spectrum.
Besides, in its efforts to make the employees part of its growth story, RIL disclosed having granted close to three crore stock options to over 14,000 employees, estimated to be worth about one billion dollar at the grant price and about $1.9 billion at the current share price. Its head count rose to 25,487 at the end of 2007-08, up from 12,540 employees two years ago as on March 2006.
Reliance Industries and Network 18 group on Tuesday joined hands for a multi-layered deal, under which the Mukesh Ambani-led corporate giant would sell a part of its interest in Eenadu TV channels and would also fund promoters of the media group.
RIL, which began gas production from KG-D6 fields in April last year, is currently producing 63-64 million standard cubic meters per day or 40 per cent of the nation's output.
Reliance Industries has strongly defended its decision to impose a marketing margin over-and-above the government-approved sale price for KG-D6 gas, saying the levy was to cover for the risk and cost associated with marketing of gas.
RIL on Monday submitted a commerciality report for the Dhirubhai-39 discovery in block KG-DWN-2003/1, about 50 km off Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, to the oil ministry and the directorate general of hydrocarbons. A company official said the well KG-V-D3-A1 flowed 38.1 million cubic feet per day of gas and the find was later named Dhirubhai-39.
Petroleum secretary G C Chaturvedi said the arbitration notice grants a time of up to a month to respond and there was no hurry.
The Singapore-based arbitrator, SIAC, has rejected Future Retail's plea to lift the interim stay on its Rs 24,713-crore deal with Reliance Retail, giving a major relief to Amazon that is contesting the transaction. The development comes a day after the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) held that Future Retail is a party to the ongoing arbitration between Amazon and Future group in the dispute over the sale of its assets to Reliance Retail. Future had contended before the SIAC that it should be excluded from arbitration proceedings because it is not a party to the dispute between its promoter Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL) and Amazon.
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries on Saturday said it plans to invest upto $14 billion in its oil exploration and production business and laying transportation pipelines.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that the demerger scheme worked out with his brother Anil Ambani was categorical that the gas supplies from the KG Basin to his group was not for trading and meant for promoting power generation plant.
RIL on April 2 shut the well A1 on the main producing fields of Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) in Krishna Godavari basin block KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 for "reservoir build-up study," according to a status report of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons.
Stock markets will remain closed on Tuesday
The government is likely to allow Reliance Industries Ltd to sell domestic cooking gas directly to bulk consumers in the country to overcome the problem of glut in LPG during lean season.
The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to halt the Bombay High Court's decision that allowed Mukesh Ambani-led RIL to amend its plea on a gas supply deal with NTPC at a committed price citing government policy.
However, the apex court allowed NTPC to file a reply to deny the allegations, if any, levelled by RIL in its amended written statement.
India's latest bid round for 21 oil and gas blocks attracted just three bidders, two of whom were state-owned explorers Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL), according to upstream regulator DGH. As many as 21 blocks or areas were offered for exploration and production of oil and gas in the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) Bid Round-VI, for which bidding closed on October 6. Besides ONGC and OIL, Sun Petrochemicals was the only other company to have bid, according to 'Summary of Bids Received Against Offered Blocks' posted by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH).
