Mumbai, April 19: Essar Oil today saw a block deal of 1.42 crore shares on Bombay Stock Exchange at Rs 49 per share.

This block deal amounts to almost 1 per cent of the company’s equity capital of Rs 1,145.50 crore.

According to the data posted on BSE, Matterhorn Ventures bought the shares, while Fidelity Funds Mauritius sold 84.12 lakh shares on the exchange.

The Essar scrip surged 5.7 per cent to Rs 51.20 after the block deal was struck. It touched an intra day high of Rs 58.45 and ended the day with a gain of Rs 8.70, or 17.96 per cent, at Rs 57.15. The counter clocked a high volume of 2.68 crore shares on BSE.

The stock has been witnessing a solid spurt from early March. From Rs 35.70 on March 9, it surged to Rs 49.85 on April 17, finishing at Rs 48.45 on April 18.

Essar Oil’s Rs 10,000-crore refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat is slated to go on stream by July this year.

The refinery will have a capacity of 7 million tonnes to begin with, which will be increased to 10.5 million tonnes by January 2007. The refinery would eventually produce between 10.5-12 million tonnes of processed products per annum.

The company plans to produce middle distillates like superior kerosene oil and high-speed diesel. These products account for over 60 per cent of the total demand for petroleum products in India. It will also produce liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and lead-free motor gasoline of various octane levels for the domestic markets and high-octane lead-free gasoline for export.

Essar Oil, which has 700 retail outlets, plans to increase the number of its retail outlets to 1,500 by June. By the end of the year, it plans to have 2000-2,500 retail outlets. The company plans to commission the crude distillation unit at Vadinar refinery for getting the transportation fuels to marketing outlets.

For the third quarter ended December 2005, the company reported a net loss of Rs 21.83 crore against a net profit of Rs 10.53 crore for the same period last fiscal. Net sales slumped 72.40 per cent to Rs 76.69 crore compared with Rs 278.30 crore in the year-ago period.