Privatisation-bound Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) on Monday said it will exit Numaligarh refinery in Assam by selling its entire stake to a consortium of Oil India Ltd and Engineers India Ltd for Rs 9,876 crore. The sale of Numaligarh Refinery Ltd clears the way for privatisation of India's second-largest fuel retailer. In keeping with the Assam Peace Accord, the government had decided to keep Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) in the public sector. As part of this, BPCL was to sell its entire 61.65 per cent stake to state-owned firms.
While the Union Cabinet had in November last year approved the sale of the government's entire 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL, offers seeking expression of interest (EoI), or bids showing interest in buying its stake, were invited only on March 7. The EoI submission deadline was May 2, but on March 31 it was extended up to June 13. On Wednesday, the government said this deadline is further being extended up to July 31.
The State-run Oil India Ltd will raise its stake in Numaligarh Refinery Ltd to 26 per cent to strengthen its position as an integrated oil company.
The 62 per cent increase in natural gas prices by the Indian government will boost the profitability of upstream companies in the country and support their investment spending, Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday. The price for gas from fields that were assigned by the state to oil companies, mainly Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL), increased to $2.90 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) for October 2021-March 2022, from $1.79 per mmBtu in the previous six months. "Higher gas prices will increase the input cost for key end-consumer sectors, to the extent the price hike is passed on," Fitch said.
Former oil secretary Tarun Kapoor, present and former chairmen of ONGC and a former director of IOC, are among over a dozen people who have applied for the top job at the oil and gas regulator, PNGRB, sources said. Kapoor, who superannuated as Secretary to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas last month, is the most prominent name in the list of 13 persons who have applied to become the chairman of Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB). Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) chairman and managing director Subhash Kumar and his predecessor Shashi Shanker are also in the race and so is G K Satish, who superannuated as Director for Planning and Business Development from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) a couple of months back.
Forced to cross the Nanoi, a channel of the Brahmaputra, over 7,000 people uprooted from their homes and farms in Darrang district of Assam now use the stream's muddy water to drink and cook and defecate in the open as `Swachh Bharat' toilets built in their villages are now guarded by policemen who do not allow them to re-enter any part of the lands they have been thrown out of.
"The Corporation has decided to offer a voluntary retirement scheme, with a view to enable employees who are not in a position to continue in service of the Corporation due to various personal reasons, to request for grant of voluntary retirement from the services of the Corporation," Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) said in an internal notice to its employees.
A deal with the Assam government, which holds majority stake in the company through Assam Industrial Development Corporation Ltd, is likely by October.
Following up on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's Budget announcement of creating an integrated oil company, India's biggest oil and gas producer ONGC may buy all of the government's 51.11 per cent stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.
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