The proposed price increase, the first in 18 months, is likely to be in the range of Rs 2 per litre for petrol and Re 1 per litre for diesel, senior petroleum ministry officials said.
Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum to open over 3,000 outlets this year. Even losses of over Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) per day from selling automobile fuels have not stopped government-owned oil marketing companies from expanding their retail network across the country.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country's largest oil refiner and marketing company, is looking to cut operating costs in order to offset the daily loss of Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) due to selling petroleum products at subsidised rates.
The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, which is being developed by GMR on the outskirts of Hyderabad, will be the first greenfield public-private partnership (PPP) airport to be operational in March 16.
This season, even as airlines hike fares and go stingy on discounts, customers are gaining from the various offers given by travel portals.
The new government guideline against simultaneous take-off and landing of aircraft from the same runway (now one runway would be used for take-off and the other only for landing) will increase delays in flight movement by 40-50 per cent, say airlines.
While full-service carriers like Kingfisher and Jet Airways are cutting down on business class seats and concentrating on the economy and leisure travellers, low-cost carriers (LCCs) have made it clear there would not be any rock-bottom fares this season.
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.
Omaxe, L&T and Unitech have already applied for the Rs 200-crore (Rs 2 billion) development projects at Udaipur and Amritsar. The work includes commercial operations and maintenance of the airport terminal building, besides development of 46,268 sq metres and 110,308 sq metres of land for city-side development and cargo handling facilities at Udaipur and Amritsar, respectively.
"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.
A total of 27 out of the 35 non-metro airports that have been taken up for development suffered a total loss of Rs 172.64 crore in 2006-07. Six of these made a loss of more than Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 million) each.
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.
Indians are splurging to fly high on second-hand private jets. The cost of these jets (over 75 per cent of the business jets sold in the country are second-hand), are on an average up to 50 per cent cheaper than a new aircraft.
ITDC/Aldeasa, a joint venture between state-owned Indian Tourism Development Corporation and Spanish company Aldeasa, had bagged the contract for duty-free operations at Mumbai airport for Rs 571 crore (Rs 5.71 billion) in February. Operations were to start in June. Instead, two weeks ago, Aldeasa wrote to MIAL saying that the contract value should be reduced to Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion).
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.
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