Gems and jewellery exports may have risen over 20 per cent so far this fiscal, but the rising rupee has cost 150,000 diamond workers their jobs in the last one year, the head of the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, Sanjay Kothari, said.
India-born steel magnate LN Mittal met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on December 8 to discuss his plans in the oil and gas sector in India. The meeting has led to reports that Mittal is interested in taking over Cairn India's assets, which includes prospective oil discovery in Rajasthan.
"The economies of scale for a refinery are different for India and Africa. India being a net exporter of products, refineries need to have capacities to the tune of 15 mtpa to push products to the domestic market and for export. In Africa even a small refinery makes sense," the analyst said.
India is being increasingly marginalised in Iran's energy sector for reasons which range from political to economic. Its attempts at securing oil and gas blocks in the country and importing gas (as LNG and through a pipeline) seem to be hitting a dead end. The latest setback for India is the agreement between Iran and Chinese Sinopec for the Yadavaran oil and gas field. This effectively pushes out ONGC Videsh - the government's overseas acquisition vehicle.
Chinese firms, with state help, pip India in acquiring oil assets abroad.
Reliance Industries, Tata Chemicals, Bharti Enterprises' Fieldfresh and Indian Oil are among several large companies that have evinced interest in leasing closed sugar mills that the Bihar government is offering, mainly to exploit opportunities to make ethanol to meet mandatory petrol blending norms that were introduced this year.
Last week, when Harish Bhasin, the Delhi-based stock broker, made an open offer for DCM Shriram Industries Ltd, he was back in news after almost 25 years.
Gas production from the country's biggest gas block is less than a year away, but Reliance Industries (RIL), operator of the block in the Krishna-Godavari basin, and Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL), the biggest buyer of gas from the block, have not made headway on renegotiating the sales agreement.
Videocon Industries, the oil-to-consumer durables company, has joined the race for the acquisition of the London-based Burren Energy, which recently rejected several approaches including one worth $3.5 billion (Rs 14,000 crore) from the Italian major ENI.
The newly set up Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board has received over 100 applications from domestic and foreign companies interested in supplying gas to domestic households and vehicles in cities.
The country's second-largest government-owned oil and gas exploration company Oil India has qualified as a non-operator in the latest round of oil blocks auction in Libya.
Well, LIC, the government-owned insurer, is bailing out the financially-strapped oil marketing companies by buying up the oil bonds issued to them by the government, though at a discount.
With the rise of global crude oil prices - currently nudging $100 per barrel - the "losses" of the three government-owned oil marketing companies have gone up to a whopping Rs 240 crore (Rs 2.4 billion) per day.
The sharp rise in oil prices is threatening to derail not only the long-term expansion plans of government oil marketing companies, which control over 95 per cent of the market, but also their day-to-day operations.
RIL accounted for over a quarter of the country's LPG production of around 8.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) last year. Around 2.5 mtpa LPG - the only petroleum product in which India is not self-sufficient - was imported last year to meet the domestic demand of 11 mtpa. RIL is planning to cut LPG production at Jamnagar from 2.3 mtpa to around 1.6 mtpa from mid-2008 following the grant of export-oriented-unit (EoU) status to the refinery.
To extend its global footprint, GAIL India is likely to partner with China Gas in developing coal bed methane (CBM) in Mongolia. Moreover, Oman Oil is also expected to join them as an ally in the project.
Cement shipments from Pakistan will hit the Indian markets by the end of the month at prices that are up to a third lower than domestic prices.
Organised retail in India's rural hinterland is a very different ball game from what it is in urban centres.
RP Singh, managing director of Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd, the special purpose vehicle implementing BPCL Bina refinery, had told Business Standard in August that the company was in talks with strategic investors to sell 15 to 20 per cent stake.
The MEP has been raised from $225 a tonne in May to $495 a tonne in October. Despite this, domestic onion prices have risen sharply. They are currently available at Rs 24 -28 per kg at the retail level, compared with Rs 8-10 a kg in May.
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