Markets remained rangebound with negative bias in noon trades on Monday with auto shares leading the decline on the back of weak October sales while bank shares continued to trade firm.

At 13:00hrs, the 30-share Sensex was down 21 points at 27,845 and the 50-share Nifty was trading 8 points lower at 8,314.

State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd aims to double its refining margins once it completes the expansion and upgrade of its Kochi refinery in Kerala to process high sulphur crudes by 2016, a senior company official said.

The refiner's margins dropped to $3 a barrel this year, from $4.50 to $5 a barrel last year, but levels will increase by a about $3 to $4 a barrel by mid-2016, said Neeraj Shukla, a chief manager at BPCL's refineries division.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has begun a probe against four officials of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in the Rs 10,000-crore Saradha chit fund scam.

According to CBI sources, three existing Sebi officials and one former official are being examined.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has edged past Reliance Industries (RIL) to be the highest-ranked Indian energy firm on this year's Platts Global 250 Rankings.

ONGC, ranked 22 in 2013, improved one position this year on the list led by global firms Exxon Mobil Corp, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell. RIL slipped from the 19th rank in 2013 to 22nd.

MUMBAI: At any gathering of brokers, analysts and investors, a major part of the conversation currently revolves around the new government and its policies. Thursday evening's Muhurat trading session at P J Towers, the headquarters of BSE in south Mumbai, which saw the sensex closing 64 points higher at 26,851, was no different.

Benchmark indices continued to trade firm after a gap up opening led by L&T and Tata Motors while index heavyweight Reliance industries rebounded after the recent correction post the gas price hike.

At 10.40AM, the 30-share Sensex is up 179 points at 26,754 and the 50-share Nifty is up 54 points at 7,982.

The new gas pricing policy would make deep water discoveries of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) viable, according to equity research firm Bank of America (BofA) Merrill Lynch. According to the approved pricing policy, gas from deepwater and ultra deep water discoveries would get a higher price to be determined as per the prescribed procedure. “Thus R-cluster, satellite fields and MJ1 discoveries in the KG-D6 block and those in NEC-25 and CYD5 would realise higher price and would be developed,” said BofA ML, in a note.

Shares of Canada-based Niko Resources, a partner of Reliance Industries (RIL) in the D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari basin and NEC-25 gas block in the Bay of Bengal, dropped 47.95 per cent to C$0.38 apiece (at the time of going to press on Monday) in the wake of the Centre's move to increase natural gas prices by 46 per cent from $4.2 per million British thermal (mBtu) units to $6.17 per mBtu from November 1. Reliance Industries' (RIL) scrip dropped 0.39 per cent at Rs 934.5 a share on the BSE on Monday.

RIL holds 60 per cent interest in D6 block and NEC-25 blocks, while BP India holds the remaining 30 per cent interest. Niko is also the operator of and holds a 33.33 per cent interest in the Hazira Field in Gujarat.

Shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) has dipped nearly 3% at Rs 913, its lowest level since March 31 this year on BSE on reports that the company will not get the new gas price for its currently producing Dhirubhai-1 and 3 gas fields in eastern offshore KG-D6 till it makes up for the shortfall in production in the past four years. The stock touched a low of Rs 912 on NSE.

However, the stock recovered from its early morning low and trading lower by 1% at Rs 932 on BSE at 0944 hours. A combined 1.38 million shares changed hands on the counter so far on NSE and BSE.

The much-awaited decision on gas prices has finally come. However, production is unlikely to increase in the near term. The decision to raise the price from the current $4.2/mBtu to $5.61/mBtu will impact three of India's upstream companies differently. It is a positive for Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India (OIL). It is sentimentally negative for Reliance Industries (RIL), as the revised pricing formula is not going to apply to the company till arbitration proceedings are on. Till this is resolved, the difference between the revised and earlier price of $4.2/mBtu will be credited to a gas pool account maintained by GAIL.

The market believes ONGC and OIL would be the biggest beneficiaries of diesel price deregulation and the gas price revision. With underrecoveries disappearing in the case of diesel, ONGC is expected to gain the most, believe oil & gas analysts. Diesel accounts for 55 per cent of total underrecoveries and about half of it is borne by public sector oil and gas producers. Within that, most of it is borne by ONGC.

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