Wednesday, March 16 2005 11:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex opened moderately higher and later surged up further on the back of a relief rally after the three-session down drift on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), on emergence of buying support from operators today (Mar 16, 2005).

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened up at 6757.49 as against yesterday's (Mar 15, 2005) close of 6752.45 and later moved upwards to a high of 6792.93 before being quoted at 6791.97 at 10:30 hrs (IST), up by 38.52 points.

Operators and retail investors were believed to have turned buyers after booking profits for the last three trading sessions, brokers said.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) reported net investments of Rs 2897.50 crore including a block deal of Rs 2467 crore in Bharti Tele-Venture on March 14.

The sentiment was bolstered by reports that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government will soon kick off disinvestment in the oil sector by offloading 15 per cent of the government stake in Oil India Limited (OIL).

Meanwhile, soaring crude oil prices caused concern among the investors. Oil prices moved closer to all-time record highs in New York yesterday.

Blue chip counters like Tata Steel, ONGC, Hindalco, Dr Reddy's and Cipla were quoted sharply higher.