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Mumbai, Dec. 19 Share prices of major oil and gas exploration companies have dipped sharply on the back of the continued slide in international crude oil price after it touched an all-time high in July this year.

The crude oil future contracts dropped below $35 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) in intra-day trade on Friday.

The US oil future contracts for January delivery touched a low of $34 a barrel in the intra-day trade around 6.40 p.m. IST.

According to analysts, “both refining and upstream segments are reeling under the effect of plummeting demand due to the economic slowdown and financial turmoil in world markets.”

On July 11, crude oil future on the NYMEX touched an all-time high of $147.27 a barrel, however, the crude futures started falling sharply from October.

Shares of oil and gas companies have fallen sharply, taking a cue from the falling crude prices that intensified in the second half of October, said an analyst.

Shares of the three major oil and gas exploration companies — RIL, ONGC and Cairn India — saw renewed selling pressure on Friday.

Largest public sector company ONGC fell 3.23 per cent to Rs 709.15. Cairn India dropped sharply by 4.26 per cent to Rs 152.90 a share. However, share price of Reliance Industries, the largest private sector oil exploration and refining company, was down by just 0.81 per cent to Rs 1,349.25 a share.

Another Reliance group company, Reliance Petroleum, closed flat at Rs 88.90. However, the stock traded at less than one-third of its 52-week high of Rs 259.80.

Essar Oil, however, gained over 6 per cent to Rs 94.60 a share.

According to a Merrill Lynch report on Reliance Industries, “the Singapore complex refining margins forecast for FY10E and FY11E has been cut by 23-41 per cent to $4.2-5.4/bbl from $7.2-6.9/bbl. The cut in refining margin forecast is mainly due to expected decline in oil Asian demand and large refining capacity addition in 2009-2010E.”

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