RIL scrip surges to Rs 1,622.10 on Bombay Stock Exchange

Mumbai, May 3 (UNI) India's prestigous blue-chip company, the Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani Group's (MDAG) Reliance Industries (RIL) today advanced by 3.97 per cent to settle at Rs 1622.10, as 8.62 lakh shares changed hands in the counter on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

It had surged to a high of Rs 1,627.80, while its low was at Rs 1,575.

RIL will pay over USD 600 million for hiring deep-sea drilling rigs for developing the gas fields in the prolific KG-D6 block off the east coast in the Godavari basin at Andhra Pradesh.

It had hired US-based Tranocean's Deepwater Frontier rig at a day rate of USD 3,20,000 for two years, beginning August 2006. Deepwater Frontier is currently drilling in Bay of Bengal. Crude oil production will begin in the first quarter of 2008, earlier than the gas project and oil output will range between 30,000 and 50,000 barrels per day, RIL had informed the BSE earlier.

KG-D6, the world's second largest deepwater find last decade, is being brought to production in less than six years of discovery at a cost of USD 2.8 per barrel of oil, analysts pointed out and added that once the fields comes into production, almost all of the country's natural gas deficit will be wiped out.

UNI