Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the Navi Mumbai International Airport and a portion of the Mumbai Metro Line, marking significant improvements to transportation infrastructure in Mumbai.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has reported a 10 per cent decline in its June quarter net profit on lower oil prices and stagnant production from its aging fields. The company reported a net profit of Rs 8,024 crore in the first quarter of 2025-26 fiscal year, compared to Rs 8,938 crore earning in the same period last year, a company statement said.
India, the world's third largest oil importing and consuming nation, is likely to save as much as Rs 1.8 lakh crore on import of crude oil and LNG if the trend of softening international energy rates continues, Icra said Wednesday. India, which meets over 85 per cent of its crude oil needs through imports, spent $242.4 billion on buying crude from overseas in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025.
The government has slashed by up to a fifth the supplies of cheaper gas to city gas entities that retail CNG to automobiles, increasing their dependence in costly imported fuel. Buying costly imported gas to make up for the shortfall should result in a hike in CNG price but given the ensuing assembly elections in Maharashtra, that may be put off for now. Indraprastha Gas Ltd and Mahanagar Gas Ltd in regulatory filings stated that supplies of domestically produced gas, which was available at a capped rate which is half of the imported price, has been cut.
CNG price in Mumbai as well as several other cities in the country has been hiked by Rs 2 per kg but users in poll-bound Delhi have been spared for the time being, according to city gas firms. Indraprastha Gas Ltd, the firm that retails CNG to automobiles and pipes natural gas to household kitchens for cooking in the national capital and adjoining cities, over the weekend raised CNG price by Rs 2 per kg.
Government representatives told a parliamentary panel that the US has not officially conveyed to India that it should cut tariffs by April 2.
The government has slashed allocation of natural gas used for LPG production, and diverted the low-priced fuel to city gas retailers like Indraprastha Gas Ltd and Adani-Total Gas Ltd to meet a part of their requirement for CNG/piped cooking gas supplies, according an official order. The government had in October and November last year cut supplies of low-priced natural gas coming from old fields such as Mumbai High and Bassein fields in the Bay of Bengal, to city gas retailers by as much as 40 per cent in view of limited output.
The government has slashed by up to 20 per cent the supplies of cheaper domestically produced natural gas to city retailers -- a move that may result in Rs 4-6 per kg hike in the price of CNG sold to automobiles, unless excise duty on the fuel is cut, sources said. Natural gas pumped from below the ground and from under the seabed from sites ranging from the Arabian Sea to Bay of Bengal within India is the raw material that is turned into CNG for sale to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households.
The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a revision in the formula for pricing of natural gas and imposed cap or ceiling price to help cut CNG and piped cooking gas prices by up to 10 per cent. Natural gas produced from legacy or old fields, known as APM gas, will now be indexed to the price of imported crude oil instead of benchmarking it to gas prices in four surplus nations such as the US, Canada and Russia, Union I&B Miniser Anurag Thakur told reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet. APM gas will be priced at 10 per cent of the price of basket of crude oil that India imports (Indian basket of crude oil).
Mahanagar Gas (MGL) has just hiked prices for compressed natural gas (CNG) and domestic piped natural gas (PNG) in the Mumbai Metro Area. The distributor raised prices by Rs 1.50 per kilogramme (kg) for CNG, bringing the price up to Rs 75 per kg, including taxes. Domestic PNG prices were hiked from Rs 1 per standard cubic meter (SCM) to Rs 48 per SCM, inclusive of taxes.
Most brokerages are betting that the new government will shift to a policy focussing on boosting rural incomes and consumption since that has clearly been a pain point.
Upstream majors ONGC and Oil India (OIL) results for the January-March quarter (Q4) of FY24 suggest better production in future. But OIL missed its own production targets although it delivered higher volumes and it disappointed the market in terms of Ebitda. ONGC reported standalone Ebitda of Rs 17,400 crore (up 7 per cent year-on-year or Y-o-Y) in Q4FY24, slightly below estimates due to other higher expenses.
Amid intense scrutiny from short-sellers and regulators, Adani group stocks have seen a significant shift in their shareholder base: Relatively opaque foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have given way to more recognisable investors and broad-based funds. The list of large public shareholders - those directly holding at least 1 per cent - is now dominated by entities, such as the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), US-based GQG Partners, Abu Dhabi-based International Holding Company, and Qatar Investment Authority's INQ Holding.
Crude and gas supply concerns have eased amid reports that Israel and Hamas have struck a peace deal. The International Energy Agency estimates oil demand may drop slightly in calendar 24 but Opec probably has enough pricing power to maintain $80/ barrel Brent prices. Russia's share of India's crude imports remained strong at about 35 per cent in September 2023.
ONGC's January-March quarter results for the 2022-23 financial year (Q4FY23) indicated changes in the trends of the energy cycle as well as the impact of policy change in gas-pricing. The public sector oil and gas major reported standalone Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) at Rs 16,340 crore, down 12 per cent year-on-year (YoY), and down 20 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ). There was a net loss of Rs 250 crore due to exceptional items of Rs 9,240 crore for provisions related to the ongoing dispute regarding the applicability of service tax and goods and services tax on Royalty.
India's private and state government-owned ports (non-major ports) continued to grow faster than those owned by the Centre (major ports) through the first three quarters of 2023-24 (FY24), cargo handling data shows. At 604 million metric tonnes (mmt), cargo at major ports grew by 5 per cent between April and December, while non-major ports' cargo traffic growth was 11 per cent at 531 mmt. During December 2023, central government-owned ports in India handled cargo volumes of 69.9 mmt, a tepid year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth of 0.7 per cent.
Gail India subsidiary Mahanagar Gas (MGL) on Friday announced a steep reduction in the retail price of compressed natural gas (CNG) by Rs 8/kg and domestic PNG (piped natural gas) by Rs 5/SCM across its licenced area. The move comes on the heels of the Centre revising the pricing methodology of domestically-produced natural gas on Thursday as proposed by the Kirit Parikh committee and following it with the new price announcement earlier in the day. In February, the city gas distributor reduced its CNG price by Rs 2.5/kg but prices are still around 80 per cent more than those in April last.
CNG and piped cooking gas prices in cities such as Delhi and Mumbai may be hiked by 10-11 per cent next month as the government-dictated gas price is set to rise by about 76 per cent, ICICI Securities said in a report. The government, using rates prevalent in gas-surplus nations, fixes the price of natural gas produced by firms such as state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) from fields given to them on nomination basis, every six months. The next review is due on October 1.
With Sebi telling the Supreme Court that it was not investigating the Adani group since 2016, the Congress on Monday cited a Union minister's reply in the Lok Sabha to challenge the claim and asked whether Parliament was misled or the market regulator was "fast asleep" as investors were "duped".
The automobile sector has started seeing volume growth, the crucial economy segment included. Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) could be a big beneficiary as the country's largest passenger vehicle (PV) maker has seen several favourable developments including volume recovery. Demand for its new sports utility vehicles (SUVs) appears to be good, and the company has 4 lakh outstanding orders by April 2023, (up from 3.6 lakhs in January 2023). Siam (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers) estimates that passenger vehicle demand would grow by 5-7 per cent in the 2023-24 financial year (FY24) and MSIL is likely to beat the market growth.
Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has asked why SEBI has not yet got to the bottom of ownership of the four Mauritius-based funds who are said to have parked 90 per cent of their $6.9 billion in Adani group stocks, saying does the market regulator need help of investigating agencies for this? The funds -- Elara India Opportunities Fund, Cresta Fund, Albula Investment Fund and APMS Investment Fund -- have been under cloud for last couple of years after allegations that they may be shell companies. They came into focus once again in January when a US short seller alleged that Adani Group used offshore shell companies to inflate stock price.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group on Monday said it has written confirmation that accounts of three foreign funds that are among its top shareholders are not frozen and reports to the contrary are "blatantly erroneous and misleading". Shares of Adani group companies plunged on Monday after reports that the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) froze the accounts of the three foreign funds that are among the top stakeholders in the firms. Adani Enterprises, the conglomerate's flagship company, as also Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Green Energy Ltd, Adani Transmission Ltd, Adani Power and Adani Total Gas Ltd in identical filings to the stock exchanges said the reports of NSDL freezing accounts of Albula Investment Fund, Cresta Fund and APMS Investment Fund holding shares in the group firms were "blatantly erroneous and is done to deliberately mislead the investing community."
The contract was cancelled two weeks ago due to the delay in the delivery of the vessels, sources said. The contract to build five warships was signed with the company in 2011, much before the Reliance Group took over the Gujarat-based shipyard from its erstwhile owner Nikhil Gandhi.
The Adani stock price saga will pass into public memory as one of those matters that simply escaped being nailed down, perhaps because too many vested interests were involved, notes Debashis Basu.
The clarification by the National Securities Depository (NSDL) - which is tasked with monitoring foreign portfolio investor (FPI) investment in domestic stocks - that the accounts of top investors in Adani group stocks remain 'active' has helped prevent a $500-million selloff of shares. Analysts said a freeze of the FPI accounts, as reported by some media outlets, could have prompted global index providers to cut weighting of four Adani group companies from their global indices. Brian Freitas, an analyst at independent research provider Smartkarma, said if the FPI accounts were indeed frozen, FTSE and MSCI would have reduced weighting of Adani group companies at the next rebalance, since it would have meant that the large part of the free float was not tradeable.
Shares of the six listed Adani group stocks tumbled for the fourth day on Thursday, resulting in Rs 1.59 trillion market cap loss this week. Adani Power, Adani Total Gas and Adani Transmission hit their 5 per cent lower trading limit for a fourth straight day.
Markets regulator Sebi and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) are probing some Adani Group companies for alleged non-compliance with rules, the government told Lok Sabha on Monday. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply to a question said accounts of three of the six Mauritius-based funds, that have invested most of their money in Adani Group firms, were frozen in 2016 over the issuance of Global Depository Receipt (GDR) by certain listed firms. No freeze was ordered for their holding in other firms.
The government may for the first time in about five years raise price of natural gas produced by state-owned firms like Oil and Natural Gas Corporation after the finance ministry and the Planning Commission backed the proposal for a 30 per cent hike.
Israel's newly elected Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday that he was looking forward to working with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to further develop the 'unique and warm relations' between the two democracies.
The oil ministry has stopped making fresh allocation of natural gas from domestic fields to the city gas sector, threatening the viability of Rs 2 lakh crore investment planned in the sector besides leading to a hike in CNG and piped cooking gas prices to record levels, sources said. Despite a decision of the Union Cabinet to give 100 per cent gas supply under 'no cut' priority to the city gas distribution (CGD) sector, current supplies have been maintained at March 2021 demand level. Besides, the process of allocating gas on a six-monthly average drawl also is punishing the CGD entities driving growth.
AP Moller-Maersk, one of the affected entities globally, operates the Gateway Terminals India at JNPT.
The oil companies can increase the price differential and justify the higher price by offering enhanced services to those who pay more per litre of petrol or diesel.
Shares of Adani Group companies were in focus during Monday's session, with four of the six listed stocks being locked in the upper circuit of 5 per cent, bouncing back up to 11 per cent from their respective intra-day lows on the BSE. Adani Green Energy (Rs 1,115.85), Adani Transmission (Rs 1,297.65), Adani Total Gas (Rs 1,321) and Adani Power (Rs 120.60) were locked in 5 per cent upper circuit on the BSE. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) and Adani Enterprises rallied over 7 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively, in intra-day trade. In comparison, the Sensex rose 0.44 per cent to 52,574.46 on Monday. Last week, all Adani group stocks had come under pressure after a media report suggested that the National Securities Depository (NSDL) had frozen accounts of three foreign funds that own stake in four of Adani Group companies.
Shares of Adani group companies witnessed a massive drubbing in morning trade on Monday, tumbling up to 25 per cent, amid reports that the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) has frozen certain FPIs accounts that have holding in some of these firms.
Giving a quiet burial to the decision to dismantle Administered Pricing Mechanism for petroleum products, the government on Thursday said it will control the pricing of sensitive products like LPG, kerosene and diesel.
Concerns on lower natural gas transmission, LPG rate cut & APM gas price hike might be priced in but no positive triggers
The cost of CNG, which will be reduced by up to Rs 15 per kg in the next few days following a rejig in natural gas allocation, will go up by Rs 10.6 a kg in April, when domestic gas prices almost double.
Weeks after confusion over three Mauritius-based funds whipsawing shares of Adani group firms, billionaire Gautam Adani on Monday said that "twisted narrative" seems to imply that companies have regulatory powers over their shareholders and can compel disclosures. Shares of port-to-energy group nosedived last month after reports that accounts of three of the six Mauritius-based funds that have invested most of their money in Adani group firms had been frozen by the national share depository. The three funds owned about $6 billion of shares across the conglomerate.
With most Adani Group shares locked in lower-circuit in early morning trade based on news that accounts of three foreign portfolio investors, heavily invested into group companies, were frozen by the National Security Depository Limited, market experts advise caution that investors should not jump in now to buy at lower levels.
The government plans to more than double the price of natural gas produced by Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) to $4.20 per mmBtu, in a move that will help the state-run firm break even in gas business.
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