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.

HONG KONG: Reliance Industries BSE 0.03 % has selected 11 banks for a 144A/Reg S US dollar-denominated bond offering, which could hit the markets as early as tomorrow.

ANZ, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, RBS and Standard Chartered are among the banks mandated.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Mexican state owned company, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), for assessment of potential upstream oil and gas business opportunities in Mexico and jointly evaluate value added opportunities in international markets.

RIL and PEMEX will also share expertise and skills in the relevant areas of oil and gas industry including for deep-water oil and gas exploration and production.

Fitch Ratings on Monday revised upwards its outlook on Reliance Industries' (RIL) long-term local currency rating at 'BBB stable' from 'positive', citing a better than expected show by its US shale gas business, which offset the dip in the domestic exploration business. The agency said the rating revision reflects continuing strong financial and operating performance. The report noted RIL continues to consistently out-perform the regional refining margin benchmarks. Fitch expects its profitability from refining and mid-stream operations to improve further, once the on-going investments for capacity addition and to improve efficiencies are completed over the next two to three years. "The change of outlook on the local currency issuer default ratings, which is not constrained by the BBB-sovereign- to stable reflects our revised expectations on RIL's medium-term credit metrics and the revenue contribution of the upstream oil and gas business," it added.

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