Indian share markets recover

Fri, 21 Jun 11:30 am

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Indian share markets have recovered in the last two hours of trade. While oil and gas and IT are leading the pack of winners, banks and healthcare are facing the maximum selling pressures.

The BSE Sensex is up by 55 points and the NSE-Nifty is up by 14 points. BSE Mid Cap index is down by 0.1% while the BSE Small Cap index is up by 0.4%. The rupee is trading at 59.42 to the US dollar.

Engineering shares are trading on a mixed note with Alstom T&D and Manugraph India leading the gains while Emco Ltd. and Shanthi Gears are leading the losses. According to a leading financial news medium, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), India's largest engineering and construction company is looking to build its order book of Rs 2000 bn over the next two years. Recently, L&T has announced that it is competing for defence contracts worth up to Rs 80 bn, which is scheduled to be awarded in the next few months. Among others, the company has placed bids for four contracts from the Indian coast guard worth about Rs 40 bn for supplying training ships and support vehicles, the orders of which are likely to be finalized in the next six months. L&T has a presence in defence equipment space for three decades and has been working closely with DRDO for building defence equipment.

L&T is a $13.5 billion technology, engineering, construction, manufacturing and financial services conglomerate, with global operations and its share is trading up by 0.1%.

Energy shares are trading on a mixed note with Chennai Petroleum and ONGC leading the gains while Petronet LNG and Gujarat State Petronet are leading the losses. According to a leading financial news medium, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has inked a contract to hire a long-idled ultra-deepwater drillship of US-based Transocean for $ 412,000 amounting to Rs 23.9 m per day. The company has hired 'GSF Explorer' drilling rig for one year beginning July. GSF Explorer is capable of drilling up to 30,000 feet in water depths of up to 7,800 feet.

ONGC hired drillship GSF Explorer after recently cancelling a deal with a rival driller. A contract to hire the rig was signed on May 24 ending months of re-tendering and negotiations between ONGC and Transocean. In an initial tender floated by ONGC for hiring an ultra-deepwater rig last year, Transocean had emerged as the sole bidder and offered a two-year contract at $ 601,000 per day, which ONGC felt was too high. ONGC re-floated the tender and ultimately selected Russian player Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka, the lowest bidder, which offered the drillship Deep Venture for two years at $ 399,000 per day. But the deal fell through because the Russian player did not submit performance bank guarantee and did not mobilize the rig on time. ONGC's share is trading up by 1.9%.