GAIL (India) gains after starting drilling of first exploratory well in Cambay Basin

GAIL (India) rose 2.79% to Rs 357 at 12:15 IST on BSE after the company announced that it has started drilling the first exploratory well as operator in its NELP-IX block in Cambay Basin.

The announcement was made during market hours today, 30 March 2016.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 272.36 points or 1% at 25,172.82.

On BSE, so far 40,331 shares were traded in the counter as against average daily volume of 1.06 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 359.95 and a low of Rs 350.90 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 418 on 25 June 2015. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 260.25 on 25 August 2015. The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 29 March 2016, rising 14.04% compared with 8.25% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had, however, underperformed the market in past one quarter, dropping 5.11% as against Sensex's 4.52% fall.

The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 1268.48 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

GAIL (India) said that the process, technically called spudding started on 27 March 2016 in the well situated in Dugari village in Tarapur Tehsil of Anand district of Gujarat. GAIL (India) is the lead operator of the block with 25% participating interest in it. Other partners in this block are Bharat Petro Resources, Engineers India, Monnet Ispat Energy and Bharat Forge Infrastructure.

Drilling of target depth of 2,500 meters of this well is scheduled to be completed in 40 to 45 days followed by testing for another 10 to 15 days. This will target Cambay Shale and Olpad formations. The consortium will drill eight exploratory wells in the initial exploration phase as per minimum work commitment of production sharing contract (PSC). While this phase will continue till March 2017, acquisition, processing and interpretation (API) of 2D and 3D seismic data have already been completed, GAIL said.

GAIL (India)'s net profit rose 10% to Rs 664.26 crore on 10.4% decline in net sales to Rs 13380.05 crore in Q3 December 2015 over Q3 December 2014.

GAIL (India) is India's leading natural gas company with a presence along the entire hydrocarbon value chain spanning E&P, LNG, pipelines, LPG, petrochemicals, city gas distribution etc. The Government of India (GoI) held 56.74% stake in GAIL (India) as per the shareholding pattern as on 31 December 2015.

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