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Sensex Marginally Lower; ITC & ICICI Bank Perform Worst
Wed, 19 Oct 01:30 pm

The Indian share market are trading marginally lower during the noon trading session on account of profit booking across FMCG & realty stocks. Meanwhile, gains are largely seen in power, energy & PSU stocks.

The BSE Sensex is trading lower by 103 points (down 0.4%) while the NSE Nifty is trading lower by 33 points (down 0.4%). The BSE Mid Cap index is trading down by 0.3% and BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.4%. Gold prices, per 10 grams, are trading at Rs 29,765 levels. Silver price, per kilogram is trading at Rs 42,124 levels. Crude oil is trading at Rs 3,427 per barrel. The rupee is trading at 66.70 to the US$.

Shares of National Aluminum Company Ltd (Nalco) are trading on an encouraging note (up 1.8%) after the company  reported a growth of 5.8% in its aluminum sales during April-September 2016, overcoming sluggish market conditions. The state-run aluminum company has sold 181,000 tonnes of aluminum in this period against a production figure of 188,000 tonnes. The company has also registered a growth on 8.5% in Alumina hydrate sales during the same period at 581,000 tonnes out of a total production figure of 968,000 tonnes.

In terms of production, the company's performance was stellar, especially bauxite mining, which increased 23.6% at 3.5 mt.  Aluminum output by the navratna company jumped 4.2% higher than the corresponding period of last fiscal. In the period under review, the company's net power generation went up 3.6% to reach 2945 million units.

Moreover, the company generated 130 million units of wind power, marking a growth of 14.7% over the comparable period of 2015-16.

For 2016-17, Nalco has set a Capex (capital expenditure) target of Rs 10.21 billion. The amount is intended to be used for projects like development of Utkal D & E coal blocks, wind power projects of 50 Mw each in Maharashtra and Rajasthan, addition of fifth stream in the existing alumina refinery at Damanjodi, aluminum park at Angul in Odisha, a 20 Mw solar power project in Madhya Pradesh and other expansion and modernization activities.

Union minister for coal, power and mines Piyush Goyal has recently asked Nalco to prepare a prospective future plan to raise aluminum smelting capacity to two mtpa from the present nameplate capacity of 0.46 mtpa.

Share price of Nalco was down by 1.4% at the time of writing.

Moving on to news from stocks in oil & gas sector. As per an article in a leading financial daily, in a setback for Cairn India Ltd, the Delhi High Court rejected the company's plea to export surplus crude from its Rajasthan oil fields (Subscription Required).

Under the production sharing contract (PSC) between Cairn and the central government, the company would get a right to seek permission to export its share of the crude oil only after India attains self-sufficiency, the court said.

The company had earlier filed a petition to export excess crude oil as they claimed that their export policy gave it the right to do so. However, in an earlier hearing the government had said that export of country's domestic crude oil cannot be allowed, considering the fact that nearly 85% of required crude was imported. As it would be detrimental to national interest.

Moreover, neither the government, nor its nominees or public sector refineries were willing to purchase its crude. Cairn contended that it was forced to sell to two private refineries Reliance and Essar, at a loss since these prices were not internationally competitive.

However, according to the Centre, India had a total refining capacity of 223 million tonnes. However, at present only 38 million tonnes of crude oil was available. It would not be in the interest of the country to export crude.

Shares of Cairn India were trading up by 0.8% at the time of writing.

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