Two persons, including a pregnant woman, were killed and at least 10 others sustained serious burn injuries when a pipeline of the Assam Gas Company Limited caught fire after a blast in the wee hours of Monday near Singijan Tea Estate in Moran in eastern Assam.
The district administration said that air pollution is still within the acceptable limit and the local office of Pollution Control Board, Assam is closely monitoring the situation.
Six persons were killed and 49 injured and a gas pipeline of Assam Gas Company Limited was extensively damaged in separate incidents of violence as ultras of the United Liberation Front of Asom went on a killing spree in Upper Assam on Sunday.
Though no peripheral burning is taking place at the moment at the well's site at Baghjan, the company has declared an area up to 1.5 km radius as "red zone" to avoid any untoward incident and harm to the general public.
The two firefighters had gone missing after the well caught fire on Tuesday and their bodies were recovered by a National Disaster Relief Force team on Wednesday morning, said Oil India Spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika.
IOC has been forced to shut down its Digboi refinery in Assam and is operating Guwahati unit at minimal throughput, while OIL has been forced to shut LPG production and its crude oil production has dropped by 15-20%. Sources said the agitation has blocked the movement of tankers and trucks, which are mostly used to supply petrol, diesel and LPG from the refineries to different parts of the North East.
The upstream oil and gas (O&G) sector has delivered a stellar performance in the stock market in the recent past. The O&G sector is dominated by PSUs and despite the imposition of a windfall tax, profitability has been impressive. Oil India Limited (OIL) is particularly favoured by investors.
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.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs last month allowed ONGC and Oil India Limited to tap shale resources in blocks allotted to them on a nomination basis.
LPG customers of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) will continue to get cooking gas subsidy post-privatisation of the nation's second-biggest fuel retailers, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday. "Subsidy on LPG is paid to consumers directly and not to any company. So the ownership of the company that sells LPG is not of any material consequence," Pradhan told PTI. The government gives 12 cooking gas (LPG) cylinders of 14.2-kg each to households in a year at a subsidised rate.
Though the NDA government had been trying to privatise 20 companies, a decision for which was taken in 2017, and included national carrier Air India, the investor community evinced little enthusiasm for any of them. Now, with an in-principle approval for privatisation of BPCL, CCI and SCI, the government has taken the plunge again.
The dinner Jill Biden and her husband US President Joe Biden hosted for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, June 22, at the White House brought together, Indians and Americans from so many firmaments.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours, As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth Budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
To prevent rise in air pollution levels, oil marketing companies and thermal power units were planning to procure stubble from farmers to make bioethanol and promote the central government's 'Agricultural Mechanization' for crop residue management. But both have seen minimal success.
The main losers on the Sensex were Tata Steel, Hero Moto, BHEL, ONGC & Maruti Suzuki.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
2014 was a year for downturn for most economies across the globe.
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