NEW DELHI: Oil & gas stocks Petronet LNG (down 2.71 per cent), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (down 2.40 per cent), Reliance Industries (down 2.02 per cent), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (down 1.62 per cent), GAIL (India) (down 1.28 per cent) and Indian Oil Corporation (down 1.25 per cent) tanked in Tuesday's trade.

Oil stocks took a beating due to recent rise in global crude oil. Concerns over inflating trade deficit that soared to a three-year high on rising crude oil import bill turned investors cautious.

The BSE Oil & Gas index was trading 1.33 per cent down at 16,033 around 12:45 pm (IST).

Shares of Oil India (down 0.20 per cent), Castrol India (down 0.08 per cent), Indraprastha Gas (down 0.06 per cent), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (down 0.05 per cent) were also seen in the red.

Benchmark BSE Sensex was 37 points up at 34,881, while the NSE Nifty50 index was 4 points down at 10,738.

Among the 50 stocks in the Nifty50 index, 18 were trading in the green, while 32 were in the red.

IT stocks including Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services were leading the Sensex index.

Reliance Industries, Coal India and Tata Motors were among the top drags on the Sensex kitty of stocks.