Sensex Rebounds from 1% Loss on Coal India Offering Strength

123jump.com Staff
18 Oct, 2010
New York City

Stocks in Mumbai recovered from the early fall as the Coal India offering received more than thirty percent of subscription. World

[R]3:40 PM Mumbai – Stocks in Mumbai recovered from the early fall as the Coal India offering receives more than thirty percent of subscription. World’s largest diamond bourse starts in Mumbai. ArcelorMital halves the proposed investment in Jharkhand steel plant complex. ONGC makes two new oil and gas discoveries.[/R]

Stocks in Mumbai fell 1% by mid-day but rebounded by the close as the Coal India public offering was subscribed more than thirty percent on the first day. The week marks the beginning of $20 billion offering slated to be completed in the next six months.

India will launch its first-ever offer of shale gas areas for exploration by end of 2011, even as it targets at least a billion dollar investment commitments from the ongoing auction of regular oil and gas blocks.

“We are evolving a policy framework for shale gas and the first round of shale gas auction is planned for end 2011,” Oil Secretary S. Sundareshan said in Mumbai Monday.

International Monetary Fund estimated India’s economy to grow 9.7% in 2010 and 8.4% in 2011. The multilateral agency also said that the nation’s growth is driven by the transition from the government stimulus to the expansion of the private sector.

The economy is on the fulcrum of an increasing growth curve. India is growing faster than just about every other country except China.

The world’s largest diamond bourse opens in Mumbai’s business district Bandra-Kurla Complex, taking India from a manufacturing to a trading hub and challenging the dominance of traditional centers like Belgium and Israel.

Bharat Diamond Bourse, designed by architect Balakrishna Doshi and spread over 20 acres with nine interlinked nine-storey towers each, has been set up at a cost of Rs 1,100 crore to establish necessary infrastructure facilities for the promotion of diamonds, diamond jewelry from India and provide all support and service facilities to the traders, importers, exporters and other stakeholders, said BDB President Anoop Mehta.

The ONGC made two new discoveries of oil and gas reserves at the Krishna-Godavari basin block and oil in the Cauvery basin.

“The two discoveries have been notified to Directorate General of Hydrocarbon after the last board meeting held on September 22,” ONGC said in a statement on Saturday.

ArcelorMital said Sunday it will cut the investment and size of its proposed Rs 50,000 crore Jharkhand plant to half. However, the company maintained that it was committed in the long run to double the annual production capacity of the plant, which has been delayed for five years, to 12 million tons.

Sate-owned ONGC is pumping in nearly Rs 16,000 crore or $4 billion, to deploy some innovative measures to exploit more oil from its ageing Mumbai High oil and gas fields.

Pumping oil from these fields with complex and irregular rock formations cradling barley 3 meters to 8 meters thick oil-bearing sub-layers has always been a challenging task from the beginning.

India will witness some landmark retail fund-raisings this week, both equity and debt, that would set the tone for more than Rs 80,000 crore of capital issues in the next six months in an increasingly uncertain global financial market, starting with the Coal India and SBI issues.

After netting around Rs 2,000 crore in two e-auctions in July and August, the National Textile Corp will put on sale two more properties, one each in Bangalore and Indore.

“From the surplus land of Malwa United Mills in Indore, the NTC will put on the block 16.57 acres with a reserve price of Rs 60 crore from October 25 to 27. Another 1.703 acres of Minerva Mills in Bangalore will be up auctioned from November 15 to 17 at a reserve price of Rs 50 crore,” NTC Chairman and Managing Director K. Ramachandra Pillai said in New Delhi.

Venus Remedies said Monday its branded drug Potentox won patents in Australia and Ukraine. The drug used in the treatment of pneumonia, already has patents in India, South Korea, South Africa and New Zealand, the company said in a statement in Mumbai today.