Markets opened marginally higher with infrastructure stocks leading the gains after the government paved the way for easing the land acquisition Act for public-private partnership and rural infrastructure projects.

At 9:35AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 23 points at 27,372 and the 50-share Nifty was trading 6 points lower at 8,240.

Reliance Industries has signed shipping agreements with one of the world’s largest shipping companies, Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd (MOL), for transporting liquefied ethane from North America to India.

MOL will supervise the construction of six Very Large Ethane Carriers (VLECs), ordered by Reliance. MOL will also operate and manage the vessels after these are built and delivered.

Mumbai: Both the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty continued to rally for the second consecutive session on Friday led by gains in IT stocks after global rival Accenture Plc raised its revenue forecast, while Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) rose on bets it will roll out its telecom services in the next few months.

The 30-share Sensex closed 0.9%, or 245.27 points, higher at 27,371.84, while the National Stock Exchange’s broader barometer 50-share Nifty rose 0.81%, or 65.90 points, to end at 8,225.20 points.

The ban on fracking by New York state is a double whammy for India’s largest private firm, Reliance Industries, which has invested $7 billion in the US shale gas sector after the 45% fall in crude oil prices.

Analysts say the falling crude oil price is making shale gas sector unviable as the massive investments in shale gas need at least $60 a barrel to sustain operations.

Billionaire Anil Ambani is conscious of the over Rs 1.14 trillion-debt burden his Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) companies are shouldering. Naturally, he is making every attempt to infuse equity and pare debt from the overstretched balance sheets of group companies.

For Reliance Capital, the financial services arm of the group, this also serves the objective of getting its focus back on core operations. The company brought down its debt to Rs 20,564 crore at the end of the first half of the current financial year from Rs 25,577 crore a year ago. This improved the debt-equity ratio of the company to 1.61 from 1.93.

Within two months of diesel prices being made market-linked, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has begun offering discounts to customers at its retail outlets.

According to retailers and dealers, RIL offers a discount of Rs 5 on petrol worth Rs 300 and Rs 10 on diesel of Rs 1,000. For diesel worth Rs 12,000, the discount is Rs 225. An RIL executive confirmed this.

Anil Ambani led Reliance Group has sold its multiplex business to South-India based Carnival Group in the largest ever deal in this space.

The transaction will reduce Reliance Capital’s overall debt by Rs 700 crore and is part of Reliance Capital’s strategy to exit minority investments.

Benchmark indices are trading lower, amid weakness in their Asian peers, dragged by losses in information technology and oil shares. Further, contraction in Index of Industrial Production for October to 4.2% also dampened sentiment.

At 9:30 AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 121 points at 27,241 and the 50-share Nifty was down 28 points at 8,196.

Reliance Industries, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Sesa Sterlite, Cairn India and Wipro are among 175 stocks that have hit a three-month low as the S&P BSE Sensex slipped over 1,000 points thus far in December.

The S&P BSE Sensex that closed to 27,602 on Thursday has lost 1,092 points from its record closing high of 28,694 on November 28. The 50-share CNX Nifty Index has also declined 295 points at 8,293 from its lifetime high 8,588. The fall has seen around 175 stocks from the BSE-500, mid-cap and small-cap index touch their respective three-month low level during the current month.

Reliance Industries has named former UK judge Sir Bernard Rix as its arbitrator in the Krishna-Godavari D6 cost recovery dispute with the government, in place of former Chief Justice of India S P Bharucha, who quit last week.

RIL gave Rix’s name, who recently retired as Lord Justice of Appeal with 20 years experience in the Commercial Court and the Court of Appeal, earlier this week, sources privy to the development said.

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