Sensex, Nifty flat; ONGC tanks 6%, BPCL & Gail fall 2-3%
The Sensex declined 26.57 points to 25287.17 and the Nifty fell 4.60 points to 7564.65. About 851 shares have advanced, 364 shares declined, and 45 shares are unchanged.
ONGC tanked 5.62 percent as the government postponed revision in natural gas prices by three months pending a "comprehensive" review to make a controversial pricing formula more palatable. The current USD 4.2 per million British thermal unit rate for gas, which would have jumped to USD 8.8 if a formula approved by the previous UPA government was implemented on July 1, will continue till September-end, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.
BPCL and GAIL declined 2-3 percent. Maruti Suzuki, Cipla and Cairn India slipped marginally.
However, Bajaj Auto, M&M, Hero Motocorp, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel, Bharti Airtel, BHEL and SBI advanced 0.8-1.2 percent.
The Indian rupee
has opened flat at 60.09 per dollar on Thursday as against previous day's closing value of 60.12 a dollar.
The dollar languished near one-month lows against a basket of major currencies after revised US growth figures for the first quarter came in shockingly weak.