Reliance Industries surged to a high immediately after the company's results were out on Wednesday, but could not maintain that height soon afterward.

The scrip had surged 2% to breach the Rs 283-mark in the afternoon shortly after the results were out. But that didn't hold for long and by the end of the first half of trading it just managed a 0.6% to gain Rs 279.40. But volumes were awesome, at 4.8 million shares on BSE.

RIL has been relatively firm over the last few months, when it moved in a Rs 270-300 band. This range was maintained after a sharp surge from Rs 219.30 late October 2002 following RIL's announcement of a mega gas find in the Krishna-Godavari basin in Andhra Pradesh

RIL's Q4 results have exceeded market expectations. For Q4 ended 31 March 2003, RIL has notched up a net profit of Rs 1,101 crore (Rs 11.01 billion). That's higher than the projected net profit of Rs 1,028-1,086 crore (Rs 10.28-10.86 billion) for Q4 by a capitalmarket.com poll. RIL's gross sales have surged 32% in Q4 to Rs 17,679 crore (Rs 176.79 billion) from Rs 13,394 crore (Rs 133.94 billion). The poll had forecast a rise of 9.8% to 39.4% in RIL's net sales for Q4 to between Rs 10,973 crore (Rs 109.73 billion) and Rs 13,930 crore (Rs 139.3 billion) as against sales of Rs 9,993 crore (Rs 99.93 billion) in Q4 ended 31 March 2002.

RIL has declared a dividend of 50% for FY 2002-03.

Analysts had expected RIL to come out with strong Q4 results due to the firming up of product prices amid the recovery in the global petrochemicals sector. RIL is a leading petrochemicals company manufacturing polymers, polyesters and fibre intermediates.

Group company Reliance Petroleum was merged with RIL a year ago. This merger made refining another major contributor to RIL's revenues. RIL has, reportedly, also bid for acquiring the 34% government stake in HPCL. RIL has emerged as one of the largest private sector players in the oil exploration segment as well, after it announced a mega gas discovery late October 2002.

RIL has a key venture in the telecom sector, too. However, RIL's huge investment in the telecom segment will take time to bear fruit . RIL's telecom services are expected to be launched on a commercial basis on 1 May 2003.

BSE code: 500325