ONGC overtakes RIL to become country's second-most valued firm

State-run ONGC pipped corporate giant Reliance Industries (RIL) in late morning trade to emerge as the country's second-most valued company with a slightly higher market valuation.

At around 1145 hours, ONGC commanded a market valuation of Rs 2,38,528 crore at the BSE, which was a little over Rs 600 crore higher than that of RIL.

RIL's market value stood at Rs 2,37,882 crore at that time, as its shares were trading 1.81 per cent down on the bourses. In contrast, the ONGC stock was trading with a gain of 1.07 per cent.

At the same time, Coal India Ltd (CIL) maintained its top position with a market capitalisation of Rs 2,50,580 crore.

At the end of yesterday's trade, CIL had a market cap of Rs 246,780.36 crore, followed by RIL at the second position (Rs 242,267.27 crore) and ONGC at third (Rs 236,003.02 crore).

Earlier, on August 17, CIL had toppled Reliance Industries to become the country's most valued firm, thus ending the private sector corporate giant's over four-year reign at the top of the market valuation charts.

Interestingly, RIL had toppled state-run ONGC over four years ago to become the country's most valued firm, but has now slipped below the two public sector firms in terms of market valuation.

A company's market valuation, or market capitalisation, is determined by multiplying its share price by the total number of shares.

CIL and ONGC had been closing the gap on RIL in terms of market valuation for the past few weeks, as RIL's stock has been under selling pressure and the two PSUs have been mostly outperforming even in a weak market.

ONGC had also come very close to toppling RIL as the country's most valued firm last week, but lost ground in the past few trading sessions.

RIL had first toppled ONGC to become the country's most valued firm way back in late 2006, but the state-run energy giant reclaimed its top position, albeit only for a brief period. RIL has managed to stay on the top since February, 2007.

Since then, ONGC had mostly been the country's second-most valued firm after RIL, but was pushed to third position by Coal India in May this year.

After a gap of about two months, ONGC again pipped past Coal India about a month ago to become the country's second-most valued firm and the most valued PSU. But weakness in ONGC shares over the past few days again brought the company below Coal India in market valuation charts.