Mumbai, Oct 23 (IANS) Shares of petrochemicals-to-retail major Reliance Industries took a tumble Friday after its foreign partner in the D9 block of Krishna-Godavari basin, Hardy Oil and Gas, said it had encountered problems at the gas find.
The news led to scrips of both Reliance Industries (RIL) and Hardy Oil and Gas taking a tumble at the Indian and London Stock Exchanges respectively.

The RIL scrip ended at Rs.2,047.30, down 4.04 percent at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) from its previous closing figure of Rs.2,133.55. The Hardy Oil stock was down almost 36 percent at the London Stock Exchange.

RIL is the operator of the block and holds a 90 percent stake, while Hardy has a 10 percent participating interest.

In a statement, Hardy had said while the exploratory well did hit some background gas, the well had poor reservoir sands in both the middle and lower miocene target levels.

The well will be plugged and abandoned, the statement added.

As their respective stocks tumbled, both Hardy and RIL came up with clarifications that their was no question of abandoning the block because of closure of one well.

In a statement issued Friday evening, the Indian company said it was committed to exploration in the block.

“RIL remains committed to pursuing the exploration campaign within this block and will incorporate data and information from this well to upgrade the prospect inventory for drilling of three more wells. Any rumour of RIL surrendering this block is completely baseless and unsubstantiated,” it said in the statement.