India's apex court, the Supreme Court of India has dismissed a plea challenging Vedanta-Cairn deal valued at US 8.5 billion on Thursday.

The SC threw out a PIL that challenged the validity of the deal. A bench of justices K. S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra ruled that the decision was taken by the central government and the ONGC based on the deal and the court will not interfere with a judgment on the decision thatwas taken by parties in business dealing after due deliberations.

Oil giant, Cairn India Ltd has said that it is planning to invest about Rs. 12,000 crore on oil and gas exploration and production during the coming three years in the country.

Cairn India, which was recently acquired by Vedanta Resources in 2011, has said that its net profit recorded an increase of 17.3 per cent to Rs. 2,563.60 crore during the quarter till March, 2013 compared to the same quarter of the previous year. The profit was affected by a drilling of an unsuccessful exploration well in Sri Lanka amounting to of Rs. 265.85 crore.

Vedanta Group explorer Cairn India has announced that it has made the 26th oil discovery in its Rajasthan block.

The company said in statement that the discovery made in the Dharvi Dungar sands of Raageshwari-Tukaram area in the RJ-ON-90/1 block of Barmer basin has nearly 10 meters of gross oil column.

The statement read, "Technical evaluations indicate about 10 metres of gross oil column within Dharvi Dungar formation."

Jaipur, April 9 : Vedanta group firm Cairn India Tuesday said it has made the 26th oil discovery in its RJ-ON-90/1 block in Rajasthan's Barmer district.

Technical evaluations indicate nearly 10 metres of gross oil column within Dharvi Dungar sands in Raageshwari-Tukaram area, the company said in a statement.

"We are delighted with the 26th discovery in the block. This reaffirms our belief that an aggressive exploration drilling programme will help harness the full potential of the Barmer Basin in Rajasthan. This is a step closer towards reserve accretion through exploration led growth," said Elango P, board member.

Anil Agarwal-promoted Cairn India Ltd aims to hike its crude oil output from current 175,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 500,000 bpd, or 25 million tones per year, in the next few years.

Cairn India, which was acquired by Vedanta Group following several regulatory obstacles, has already invested Rs 180 billion ($3.31bn) to boost production of crude oil in the country. For the next financial year that starts April 1, it has plans to invest another Rs 60 billion.

Cairn India has started additional exploration for oil at its operational field in Barmer in the western Indian state of Rajasthan.

The company has started drilling for finding new reserves at the site with an aim to increase production to 215,000 barrels per day by March, 2014. The company has become the first to begin additional exploration on an existing producing field after the union oil ministry in India allowed companies to carry on exploration on existing oil fields at their own cost.

Cairn India on Monday started its exploration well drilling programme in its Barmer oil field in Rajasthan.

The explorer has plans to invest $15 million in drilling a total of three exploration wells in the field during the current fiscal in a bid to raise production.

Cairn India Ltd, which has its flagship crude oil production base in the Barmer region of Rajasthan, has reported an increase of 48 per cent in its net profit for the three months through December 2012.

The company said in a statement that net profit climbed to Rs 3,344.89 crore in the October to December quarter, from Rs 2,322.18 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Indian Stock Market followed global stock market trend and continued the upside movement. BSE Sensex was up by 50 points at 19763 and NSE Nifty was above 6000 with a gain of 15 points. US markets closed positive on January 2 with Dow Jones gaining 2.3%, Nasdaq up by 3% and S&P higher by 2.4 per cent.

Among major gainers in today's early trading session were Dr Reddys Labs, Cairn India, Ambuja Cements, BPCL, IDFC, Tata Steel, ACC and Bharti Airtel. Among major losers in today's session were Tata Power, Lupin, PNB and Maruti Suzuki.

Indian Stock market was trading flat on Monday morning. The BSE Sensex was marginally down at 18733 and NSE Nifty was down by 4 points at 5693. Asian markets were trading lower. Hang Seng was down by 0.3% at 22031, Straits Times was down at 3031 and Nikkei 225 was down by half per cent at 9007.

Among Indian stocks, ACC was up by nearly 2 per cent at Rs 1434. Dr Reddy's Labs and Cipla were up by 1.5% each. Kotak Mahindra Bank was also among major gainers at Rs 620.

Cairn India has become the fastest growing energy company in the world after it recorded a three year compounded growth rate of 119.8 per cent, according to Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings.

ExxonMobil remained on the top of the list of the largest energy company in the world. The list included about 70 companies from Asia including those from India and China. A total of 12 Indian companies were ranked in the global Top 250 rankings list this year.

Oilfield operator Cairn India on Monday reported a more than threefold jump in its quarterly profit, but failed to meet analysts' expectations.

Cairn India said its net profit jumped more than threefold to Rs 2,320 crore ($434 million) in the quarter ended September 30 year-on-year. The net profit figure is considerably down from analysts' median estimate of Rs 2,790 crore.

Revenues climbed 68 per cent to settle at Rs 4,440 crore in the same quarter.

The management of London-listed Vedanta, a co-operative partner in ONGC, is reportedly looking to expand its international reach by acquiring new frontiers like shale acreages in India.

A senior Cairn India executive familiar with the situation said that they were keen to bid for shale acreages in India. Cairn India, which discovered India's largest onshore field in Rajasthan, will bid for shale acreages once the process of bidding starts by 2013.

Vedanta Resources' natural gas subsidiary Cairn India has revealed its plans to invest $2 billion in oil and gas exploration as well as production over the next two years.

On the sidelines of the company's 6th annual general meeting in Mumbai, Cairn India Chairman Navin Agarwal told reporters that the company was ready to increase its focus on gas, and that the investment would be made in the company's domestic as well as oversees projects.

Cairn India, which was recently acquired by Vedanta Resources, has acquired a 60 per cent stake in oil and gas exploration offshore block 1 in South Africa.

Cairn India Ltd lost more than 5% today continuing its fall after Brent crude prices dropped below $98 per barrel to a 16-month low.

The company’s stock has counterbalanced more than 13% since May as against an 8% reduction in the Sensex during the same period.

At 11:20 a. m., the company’s stock was ruling 5.6% down to trade at Rs 298.20.

The stock price hit an intraday low of Rs 298.50 and an intraday high of Rs 311.10 thus far.

Energy explorer, Cairn India Ltd has posted a lower than expected profits in the second quarter due to payment of royalties for the first time.

The net income of the energy explorer, which is being acquired by Vedanta Resources, fell 52 percent to 7.63 billion rupees in the second quarter till September. This means the company saw a fall of 4 rupees a share.

A London-listed mining group, Vedanta Resources has acquired another 10% stake in Cairn Energy’s Indian subsidiary for $1.5 billion. Vedanta has purchased 191.92 million equity shares of Cairn India at Rs. 355 per share.

Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy has revealed that it will sell another 30% of its stake in Cairn India, if it receives necessary consents and approvals from the government of India.

After the acquisition of stake in Cairn Energy, Vedanta now owns 28.5% stake in Cairn India. Even after the deal Cairn Energy will remain the major stake holder with 52.2% shares.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) led some clauses that were to be fulfilled by Cairn India so as to carry out its stake deal with the Vedanta Resources. As per the guidelines, Cairn India will have to share a percentage of its income with Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), for getting the Rajasthan fields, the company was suppose to take back their cess negotiation case and seek a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from ONGC.

Reliance Industries and oil explorer, Cairn India have been denied an opportunity to present their views on the audit objections.

The CAG has suggested that the ministry and its technical arm, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, are not much considerate about increase in capital expenditure and giving additional area in violation of the Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs).