RPL banned again

Amid rumours about US energy giant Chevron exiting Reliance Petroleum, derivatives trading in the company's scrip has been banned.

A Chevron spokesperson said from California that it was evaluating its options regarding RPL. The petroleum major owns five per cent stake in RPL, currently valued at about one billion dollar as against a purchase price of 300 million dollars.

Meanwhile, RPL shares have been seeing huge turnover in both cash and derivatives segment over the past few days. The derivatives trading was banned soon after it resumed trading on Monday after a previous ban.

According to a circular issued by National Stock Exchange, the RPL stock futures had crossed 95 per cent of the market-wide position limit and is currently in the ban period.

Late last week, RIL said that it sold 18 crore shares of RPL for over a billion dollar, reducing its stake to 70.99 per cent. This triggered speculations that Chevron could offload its five per cent stake as it might not be able to raise its stake to the desired 29 per cent level.

While taking a five per cent stake in RPL last year, Chevron was also given an option to acquire a further 24 per cent. However, speculation hit the market that the US company might acquire a maximum 20 per cent stake now as RIL would not like to dilute its stake to below 51 per cent.

"Chevron continues to evaluate options with our ownership in Reliance Petroleum. We will provide specific project updates when definitive decisions are made," the company spokesperson said in a statement.

An RPL spokesperson could not be contacted immediately.