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RIL starts test production of oil from
KG basin
Reliance Industries (RIL), India’s largest company
by market capitalisation, said the company has started preliminary crude
oil production at its D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari basin. Reliance
Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani will make a formal announcement of
production of oil at D6 block in Mumbai on Sunday, said a Reliance
official.
“The tests have started. There is no continuous flow as yet,” said the
official.
Reliance, and its Canadian partner Niko Resources has spent $2.23
billion in bringing the project to the production stage.
“The rate of oil-flow can not be determined just yet, as it is very
irregular,” said the official. He added that the flow of oil would
stabilise over the next couple of weeks, only after which the oil was
likely to be sold to refineries.
Reliance and Niko discovered oil in two wells in the MA field in the D6
block around five years ago. Once the current testing phase is
completed, the consortium is expected to start producing around 15,000
barrels a day of crude oil from the field. The production could go up to
a peak rate of around 35,000 barrels a day, the official said.
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ITC’s agri-inputs biz to focus on
exports
ITC Ltd is planning to take its two-year-old agri-inputs
initiative programme to the next level, with a thrust on export of new
organic inputs to developing countries.
The initiative is overseen by the company’s Indian Leaf Tobacco
Development Division, which has now shifted focus to eco-friendly agri
inputs across the growing cycle of different crops, under three
different brands of ‘Wllgro’, ‘Wellpro and ‘Wellsto’.
The programme has now been extended to seven States under the company’s
CSR programme of ‘Mission Sunehra Kal’, carried out in association with
NGOs and SHGs.
This is also expected to obviate the risks associated with the stern
mandate by the Union Health Ministry to switch to an alternative crop,
or to gradually decrease the area under tobacco and help farmers switch
to other viable commercial crops in a phased manner.
Talking to Business Line in Mysore recently on ILTD’s agri-inputs
blueprint for the future, Mr S. Janardhan Reddy, CEO of ILTD, said
according to overall estimates, some 80 per cent of future increases in
crop production will have to come from intensification (higher yields),
increased multiple cropping and shorter fallow periods.
This calls for improved inputs, technologies and the way the inputs are
being used.
He said ITC was the owner of the products and brands under which these
were marketed and manufacturing was exclusively outsourced to small
scale industries in a bid to help in rural capacity-building and
employment generation.
Giving an overview of the total organic inputs markets (said to be
around Rs 1400 crore in size) scenario in the country today (when most
of the products are imported), he said ILTD’s new initiative, backed by
strong R&D, was aimed at indigenously developing differentiated, new
products suitable for Indian agro-climatic conditions and cropping
pattern.
He said the division’s ongoing product development exercise was split
into two stages — R&D and Concept.
He said ITC’s Corporate R&D Centre was already engaged in screening and
developing new age molecules to strengthen the product portfolio and
offer eco-friendly inputs to farmers.
Asked on the marketing aspect, Mr Reddy clarified that the focus now was
on geographies with crops of higher and quality input usage, with a
thrust on back-end support to crops being dealt with by internal
businesses.
Suggesting that the need of the hour was not only
food security but also food safety, Mr Reddy suggested that the biggest
challenge was to improve productivity levels (vertical growth), since
there was little scope now for horizontal expansion (as nearly 9 per
cent of the suitable arable land was already under cultivation).
Citing depleting soil fertility and health as a major area of concern,
he said bulk of the nutrients applied today were lost in the form of
leaching, fixation in the soil, and were not available to the plant.
He said the company’s agri input initiatives were further strengthened
by the progressive Karnataka tobacco farmers in the HD Kote area of who
were willing to give alternative crops like ragi, maize or cotton a try
if returns from tobacco are made to shrink.
Mr Reddy said ILTD was also exploring the export markets for new age
molecules or inputs in developing countries apart from institutional
sales — “partnering with government agencies and private institutions
involved in contract farming and promotion of eco-friendly agri inputs”.
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Markets surge worldwide on short selling curbs
A massive bout of short-covering by foreign institutional investors
(FIIs), mainly hedge funds, on Friday saw Indian markets surging the
most in two months as regulators in the US, the UK and Australia took
steps to curb bets that stock prices of banks and brokerages will fall,
easing concern that the crisis in the financial markets will worsen.
The Sensex, the benchmark index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE),
closed at 14,042 after rising by 726 points or 5.46 per cent. The
broader index of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), S&P CNX Nifty-50,
closed at 4,245 points, up 207 points or 5.13 per cent.
Key indices saw a dramatic rally on Friday as regulators in the US
banned short selling in stocks of financial companies. The benchmark
index of the London Stock Exchange, FTSE 100, rose by as much as 9 per
cent while other indices in Europe such as Germany’s DAX (up 5.43 per
cent) and France’s CAC 40 (up 8.27 per cent ) surged similarly.
In Asia, the Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng and Nikkei 225 saw stunning
rallies. Russia's rouble-denominated Micex index jumped 25 per cent
after the markets were halted for trading for the past three days.
Both the Russian and Chinese indices rose the most in at least two
decades. The UK and Australia have banned short selling of financial
sector stocks since.
There were no losers among the top 30 index stocks on Friday. The market
breadth also improved with 1,888 stocks on the advancing side to 740
stocks on the declining side. The short covering rally was led by the
realty stocks, which bounced back strongly. The BSE Realty index jumped
7.59 per cent or 289.53 points.
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