Reliance Industries rose 2.93% to Rs 894.45 at 14:48 IST on BSE after a foreign brokerage reiterated its 'buy' call on the stock with a target price of Rs 1,050.
Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 60.85 points, or 0.28%, to 21,980.64.
On BSE, so far 8.27 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 2.52 lakh shares in the past one quarter.
The stock hit a high of Rs 902.40 and a low of Rs 863 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 927.90 on 19 July 2013. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 765 on 28 March 2013.
The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 7 March 2014, rising 6.72% compared with the Sensex's 7.57% rise. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 0.20% as against Sensex's 4.40% rise.
The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 3231.90 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.
According to the brokerage, Reliance Industries (RIL)'s KG-D6 block partner British Petroleum (BP) Plc has highlighted recent discoveries in KG-D6 and CYD5 as potentially commercial. Based on Niko's earlier commentary, KG-D6 discovery may be the largest ever in the block.
In its recently-released annual report, BP has highlighted D55 (MJ1) in KG-D6 and the D56 discovery in CYD5 block as two of the seven "potentially commercial" discoveries made in 2013 across its large global portfolio.
Reliance owns 60% and 70%, respectively, in these blocks. While BP does not give any indications of size, earlier commentary from Niko, another partner in KG-D6, indicates potential of MJ1 being higher than its high pre-drill resource estimate of 3.6 trillion cubic feet (TCF) which will make it the largest discovery in KG-D6 block.
The brokerage further predicts RIL could post a record quarterly net profit of Rs 5710 crore in the January-March quarter, up 4% from the previous quarter, citing improving gasoline spreads, rising gross refining margins and a rise in gas and crude production.
Meanwhile, RIL after market hours on Friday, 7 March 2014, said it is planning to shut down one of its four crude distillation units, for Maintenance & Inspection (M&I) activities from 20 March 2014 for about 3.5 weeks. As a normal practice, the opportunity would be utilized to carry out necessary modifications to improve the reliability and performance of the unit. This planned shutdown period will also be utilized for catalyst replacement of VGO and Naphtha hydrotreater, RIL said. The rest of the refinery will continue at normal levels of operations, RIL said.
RIL's net profit rose 0.2% to Rs 5511 crore on 10.3% growth in net sales to Rs 103521 crore in Q3 December 2013 over Q3 December 2012.
RIL's gross refining margin (GRM) declined to $7.6 per barrel from $7.7 per barrel in Q2 September 2013 and $9.6 per barrel in Q3 December 2012.
RIL's activities span exploration and production of oil and gas, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals (polyester, fibre intermediates, plastics and chemicals), textiles, retail and broadband services.
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