Oil processing and marketing firms suffered the most as the United States blamed Iran for the weekend attack on Saudi Arabia's crude oil facilities.
As global oil prices surged to a four-month high, equity indices in India spiralled downward towards a weak note during early hours of Monday. The hit to the market comes off in the aftermath of a drone strike on the world's biggest oil facility in Saudi Arabia, that removed about 5% of global supplies. At 3:40 PM, the BSE SENSEX was down by 261.68 points at 37,123 while the NIFTY 50 edged lower by 72.40 points to 11,003.50.
At the National Stock Exchange, sectoral indices were mixed with Nifty Auto, Financial Services, Media, Metal, Bank and Realty in the negative zone. Nifty FMCG and Pharma showed marginal gains.
With regard to market stocks, oil processing and marketing firms suffered the most as the United States blamed Iran for the weekend attack on Saudi Arabia's crude oil facilities.
In India, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd dropped by 7.31% to trade at Rs 378.70 per share while Indian Oil Corporation Ltd was down by 1.50% to Rs 128.15 apiece. Even index heavyweight Reliance Industries slipped by 1.22% to Rs 1,210.60. All market figures are recorded at 3:30 PM IST.
Other prominent names that lost indices were Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Yes Bank, State Bank of India, Bharti Infratel and Asian Paints.
However, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), GAIL (India) Limited, and Sun Pharmaceuticals managed to trade in the green. The indices of companies like Indiabulls Housing Finance and Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd dropped significantly after trading in the green for a while during the morning.
An attack on Saudi Arabia that shut 5% of global crude output caused the biggest surge in oil prices since 1991 after U.S. officials blamed Iran and President Donald Trump said Washington was "locked and loaded" to retaliate.
The Iran-aligned Houthi movement that controls Yemen's capital claimed responsibility for the attack, which damaged the world's biggest crude oil processing plant. Iran denied blame and said it was ready for "full-fledged war".
As an explainer on the backdrop, overall tensions in the oil-producing Gulf region had dramatically escalated this year after Trump imposed severe US sanctions on Iran aimed at halting its oil exports altogether.
(With agency inputs)
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