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.

The second performance audit of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL)’s KG-D6, tabled in Parliament on Friday, has taken a lenient approach towards the country’s biggest private petroleum company. Taking a “pragmatic” view, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has recommended the government allow the company to recover $427 million in cost from the field’s natural gas production.

Cost recovery for $118.99 million on the remaining wells, however, has been disallowed. Besides, the well cost for D29, D30 and D31 would be disallowed if these aren’t found to be commercially viable, the auditor said.

Reliance Industries would fare comparatively better in an environment of falling oil prices because of its scale and complexity and its capacity expansion in the petrochemicals businesses over the next 12-18 months, analysts said.

The $10-billion petrochemicals expansion will help the Mukesh Ambani-led company to offset declines in refining earnings. Crude oil prices will impact Reliance Industries’ gross refining margin by at least $1.5 a barrel this quarter, said Phani Sekhar, fund manager with Angel Broking.

Hardy Oil, a partner of Reliance Industries (RIL) in the D3 block in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin, said on Thursday that it would review its investment in India in the light of unattractive pricing and uncertainty surrounding long-term price outlook for natural gas sales.

In a statement on its half-yearly results, Hardy Oil said the joint venture (JV) partners might have to relinquish portion of the block owing to Indian defence ministry's new policy on access restriction. It said India's Defence Research and Development Organisation has classified one-third of the D3 block as 'impact zone' and has imposed certain access restrictions to that area.

Reliance Industries (RIL) has contested Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)’s draft observations on some payments the company made to contractors of KG-D6 fields, saying the auditor had not considered the contract requirement of factoring consequences of delays in procurement of goods and services on the project.

RIL, in a presentation at an Exit Conference called by CAG, at the end of its second audit of KG-D6 for 2008-09 to 2011-12, stated the auditor was using hindsight to question project efficiencies and procurements made eight years back.

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