State-owned Indian Oil Corp is looking at selling oil bonds worth Rs 1,000-1,500 crore (Rs 10-15 billion) this month in the open market even as its crude oil import bill has declined by about 67 per cent on falling global rates.
IOC, the nations largest state-run oil firm, has about Rs 31,000 crore (Rs 310 billion) worth of oil bonds that the government had issued to it to part compensate the firm for selling fuel below cost.
"In short term, we would like to sell bonds to reduce borrowings provided we get good returns," IOC director (finance) SV Narasimhan said on Wednesday.
IOC would test the markets before hitting the market. "We are not desperate to sell bonds."
The company had Rs 53,000 crore (Rs 530 billion) borrowings as on December 31, 2008.
The government had given oil bonds to state refiners to partly compensate them for selling petrol, diesel, domestic cooking gas LPG and kerosene at prices lower than the cost.
The Reserve Bank of India's special marketing operations, under which it bought bonds from oil companies, are currently closed and so IOC is looking at the open market for bond sales. "We are requesting RBI to reopen SMO," Narasimhan said.
IOC, he said, had sold bonds worth Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) this fiscal through the RBI's special operations.
