P M S Prasad has been part of Mukesh Ambani's A-team for the last 25 years. The 55-year-old engineer, now president and CEO (petroleum), Reliance Industries, joined the company in 1984, when it was building a captive power plant at Patalganga, 70 kilometres north of Mumbai.
RIL has been using gas from GAIL during the past three months to test-fire the 1,440-km east-west pipeline, India's longest, from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Bharuch in Gujarat. Only 100 km of the pipeline remains to be test-fired. It will transport gas from the world's largest gas discovery at the Krishna-Godavari basin in the Bay of Bengal to Jamnagar in Gujarat, where it has set up the world's largest petroleum refinery.
Part of government strategy to push demand.
Despite a troubled job market that could continue for another year or more, many B-schools are looking at expanding the number of seats by up to 50 per cent and launching new programmes. B-schools maintain the demand for good students will remain even in a troubled job market and the student pool and programme portfolio need to be expanded. "Besides, when these students pass out in the next two years, the market will be better," said a director from one of the institutes.
The options include doing away with Day Zero and reducing placement fees. Day Zero is the name given to the day placements begin at the IIMs. Day Zero and Day One are reserved for top companies and placement fees are higher on these days. In good times, most students are placed on these days, leaving the smaller companies to return empty-handed.
Falling crude prices and the global credit crunch have jeopardised India's efforts to attract more investment in oil exploration and production, with several domestic and international companies opting to sell part of their participating interest in E&P projects. Around half-a-dozen companies are currently in talks with exploration and production majors -- mainly state-owned Oil India and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation -- to farm out part of their stakes.
Eight companies are in the fray for rolling out gas networks in six cities, bids for which were invited by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board. The deadline for submission of the bids expired on Tuesday.
After the rechristening of Telco to Tata Motors in 2003, one of the auto-maker's earliest decision was to settle its high-cost debts of around Rs 500 crore with the proceeds from foreign currency convertible bonds, or FCCBs. The company had raised $100 million and repaid the debt.
Reliance Retail has added 485 stores in the last one year, taking the total count to 950 and the footprint is now spread across 77 cities (58 in the last one year) across India. While his critics say Ambani may have lost the plot as the progress of his retail plans are nowhere near what he had sought to achieve, others feel the Reliance chief is just being pragmatic given the not-so-conducive environment for expansion in retail.
At a time when the economic slowdown is eating into corporate earnings, the country's economy hotels, including Krizm Hotels and Berggruen Hotels, are going ahead with their expansion plans.
High crude oil prices in 2008 have left the government richer by a few thousand crore rupees. In 2008-09, the government earned "windfall profits" from the petroleum sector as crude oil prices spiked, touching a high of $147 in July 2008.
A company executive said that the Anil Ambani group is still keen on foraying into television broadcasting business. The top-line of broadcasters was shrinking in the December-ended quarter on the back of economic slowdown and the consequent slowdown in advertising revenues, said the latest Ficci & KPMG report.
Refining margin is the difference in prices of crude oil and finished products. More exposure to diesel behind less fall in Indian refining margins.
Here is another sign that the economy is slowing. The growth rate of diesel and petrol consumption is down sharply, though it is still in the positive territory.Year-on-year growth in diesel consumption in December 2008 was down to a mere 1.5 per cent as against 10.7 per cent growth in December 2007. Consumption of petrol grew 5.5 per cent in the month compared with 9.5 per cent in December 2007.Preliminary data for January showed that diesel consumption grew only 2 per cent.
Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management and Research has announced that it will provide initial financial assistance to the tune of Rs 20 lakhs (Rs 2 million)to any of its students who wishes to don the entrepreneurial hat. The business school has set up an entrepreneurship cell in association with National Entrepreneurship Network.
Chevron CEO David O'Reilly told analysts the company has pulled out of some unprofitable refining markets, and will continue to do so. However, he had said that Chevron is continuing talks with its refining joint venture partner RIL that would determine whether it keeps a foothold in Indian refining. Chevron has not yet signed a crude supply and product off-take agreement with RIL to take forward its plans to increase its stake in RPL beyond the existing 5 per cent.
After a year of sluggish growth in fuel retail outlets, the three state-run oil-marketing companies--Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation--have chalked out aggressive plans for expansion in the next financial year. They will be commissioning over 2,100 outlets in 2009-10--over three times what they added in the current year--at an investment of about Rs 1,200 crore.
According to sources, the government has provided a list of 20 companies to Reliance Industries for sale of gas as per the gas utilisation policy. Some of these companies include Nagarjuna Fertilizer & Chemicals, Chambal Fertilizers & Chemicals, Tata Fertilizers and Oswal Chemicals & Fertilizers among others.
The fuel price revision on Wednesday is likely to wipe out the Rs 1,100 crore net revenue earned by the three oil marketing companies--Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation -- in the last one month, say officials from these companies.
At present, the annual cost-to-company of an entry-level officer in an oil-marketing company stands at Rs 6,30,000 per annum, including the annual performance bonus and various allowances, perks and retirement benefit that these officers are entitled to.
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