HC verdict against RIL, -ve global cues spook markets

15 June 2009

The benchmark indices took a big knock today due to huge sell-off in heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL). The Bombay High Court (HC) ruled in favour of RNRL (Reliance Natural Resources) in RIL-RNRL gas case. HC asked RIL to supply gas to the RNRL to the tune of 28 mmscmd ((Million Metric Standard Cubic Meter Per Day)  for 17 years at a price of USD 2.34 per mmbtu (million metric British thermal unit).

RIL plunged 7.48% and Reliance Petroleum was down 7.15%, which dragged the BSE Oil & Gas Index 4.51% or 474.08 points lower to close at 10,035.64. Among the others, Cairn India fell 2.31% and ONGC was down just 0.33%. However, the most beneficial ADAG's (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) RNRL surged 24.11% and its volumes shot up 525% compared to 5-day average. Reliance Power rose 4.3% and Reliance Infrastructure gained 1.4%.

Commenting on the verdict, SP Tulsian of sptulsian.com said that the judgment would lead to Reliance Industries to suffer losses to the tune of Rs 3,600 crore. Tulsian however said he did not expect RNRL to be allowed to trade in the interim period till the Dadri project was created and added that more than RNRL, Reliance Power would benefit. "There would be increased profitability for Reliance Power but that is obviously once the power projects goes on stream."

Selling in capital goods, auto, metal and realty stocks and negative cues from global markets also weighed on the Sensex and the Nifty, which closed below 15000 and 4500 levels.
 
However, buying in FMCG, cement, select financial and power stocks helped the markets to recover to some extent from day's low.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 14,875.52, down 362.42 points or 2.38% and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 2.17% or 99.40 points, to settle at 4,484.

Commenting on the verdict, R Amarnath, ED-Corporate Solutions at Centrum said, "The court judgement and the arithmetic have been well played out in terms of the stock dropping almost Rs 200. But in terms of how all this pans out operationally and in reality over what point of time; whether they further appeal to the Supreme Court, whether the government get into it because of the NTPC issue that's all one needs to watch out for possibly over the next month or two-three months.''