Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries
State-owned fuel retailers, which last week raised petrol price by Rs 1.80 per litre, reported a net loss of over Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) in July-September quarter and are borrowing heavily to even buy crude oil.
Oil companies choose to skip the revision this time.
Getting compensated for at least 90 per cent of losses without government subsidy appears difficult.
The company's market valuation stood at Rs 10,972 crore in morning trade.
The government has ordered Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) to pay a near-record Rs 13,764 crore as fuel subsidy for the December quarter, a move that will dent the firm's profitability.
The government on Thursday approved Rs 20,001 crore in additional cash subsidy to state-owned oil companies to compensate them for selling fuel below cost in 2010-11 fiscal. With this, the government has paid a total of Rs 40,912 crore in subsidy to oil companies in 2010-11 financial year, an oil ministry official said.
Despite raising petrol prices by around Rs 2.95 a litre - the second-biggest increase in this calendar year so far - public and private retailers are losing Rs 50 crore a day on selling the auto fuel.
Private carriers Jet Airways and Kingfisher owed over Rs 1,050 crore (Rs 10.50 billion) to the public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) like Indian Oil, HPCL and BPCL towards the payment of jet-fuel bills as on November 15.
Though ONGC and OIL are major producers of natural gas, they currently have no presence in its retailing and marketing, a field dominated by GAIL and its joint ventures.
State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) on Tuesday said it is losing about Rs 3 on the sale of every litre of petrol, but will decide on raising prices at an "appropriate" time.
Estimated to cost $44 billion, the project was expected to be commissioned by 2025.
Oil prices have declined by more than 60 per cent since January with benchmark crude falling well below $30 per barrel, driven by an acute oil demand decline caused by the coronavirus and a lack of production cuts by OPEC and other oil producing countries.
'I have been advising investors since the last couple of months to at least take their capital out.' 'Most of the people have made 50-60 per cent in the market, if not more, they must at least take their capital out.'
India should learn to live with high energy prices for rapid economic growth, said Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia after two of the state-owned oil companies hiked petrol rates this week.
State-owned fuel retailers IOC, BPCL and HPCL are likely to lose Rs 65,000 crore on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost during the current fiscal, Oil Minister Murli Deora said on Wednesday.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The domestic deal-making activities were hit by weak corporate governance and a huge liquidity crunch in 2019, while the global deals were also hard to come by due to various factors including uncertainties caused by the US-China trade war, which left many investors in a wait-and-watch mode.
He still owes hundreds of crores to OMCs.
Sentiment took a dramatic change particularly in the last one hour of trading with the lower opening of the European markets and investors booking profits in broader markets at record levels
Justice Markandey Katju recused himself from the matter saying his wife held shares of Reliance Industries.
Only 48.3 per cent of the rural households used LPG, while the figures were much higher in urban areas at 86.6 per cent, according to a NSO report.
Credit card payments to buy fuel at petrol pumps will from October 1 not get a 0.75 per cent discount that State-owned oil companies had introduced more than two-and-a-half years back to promote digital payments.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers queries on how to invest in stocks.
The company, which has successfully commissioned the 'open access' fuel storage system for the first time in the country at Bangalore International Airport, has submitted its expression of interest for the projects. Currently, IOC, HPCL and BPCL are providing fuel storage services at Mumbai and Delhi airports.
Former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta give out an impeccable performance to beat compatriot and his BPCL team-mate G N Gopal and jumped to joint lead after the seventh round of the Asian continental chess championship in Subic Bay, Philippines on Wednesday.
The Union government will gain close to Rs 1.6 lakh crore in additional revenues this fiscal from a record hike in excise duty on petrol and diesel that has pushed the total incidence of taxation on auto fuels to 70 per cent of the price. Late on Tuesday evening, the government hiked excise duty on petrol by Rs 10 per litre and that on diesel by Rs 13 a litre to mop up gains arising from international oil prices falling to a two-decade low.
'At this time, staying in the game is more important.' 'If we do that, then wealth can be generated.'
One of the reasons is that the retail prices are not bench-marked to crude but their respective international benchmark prices.
The Union oil ministry is considering a proposal to adopt differential pricing for diesel, under which industrial users like power utilities, will be charged market prices and retail consumers continue to be subsidised.
Indian Oil Corporation on Tuesday said it may lose over Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion) in revenues this fiscal on selling fuel below imported cost.
Kingfisher, Jet and state-owned Air owe Rs 4,000 crore to oil companies and airports. Dues to the Airports Authority of India, private airports and oil companies IOC, BPCL and HPCL were to have been cleared by March 31, under the government's mandate. Industry figures show that the three airlines are collectively projected to make operating losses of Rs 5,000 crore.
In a step towards dual pricing of domestic cooking gas, the government has decided to allow oil-marketing companies to sell the fuel at market prices in distinct fibreglass cylinders. IOC, BPCL and HPCL will sell these cylinders in Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune, which have been identified as test beds for the pilot project. The companies could revise fuel prices for transparent cylinders as LPG for them will not be subsidised. Feasibility of this project is yet to be adjudged.
The government's decision to raise fuel prices in June has scuttled the oil companies' plans to reduce their losses from retail fuel sales as consumers are buying less of premium fuels, which is more expensive than normal fuels.
Responding to a Call Attention Motion in Rajya Sabha on the recent price hike, Deora said the July 2 increase had helped IOC, BPCL and HPCL cut their revenue losses for July from Rs 4,870 crore (Rs 48.7 billion) to around Rs 2,880 crore (Rs 28.8 billion).
The government will give state fuel retailers Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion) to partly compensate them for losses on LPG and kerosene by March 31.
Oil marketing companies on Friday cut petrol price by 32 paise, and diesel by 85 paise a litre with effect from midnight tonight.
The firms were till last month selling diesel at a profit of 32 paise a litre, which helped them partly neutralise the losses on the sale of petrol, domestic LPG and kerosene. But from Monday, IOC, BPCL and HPCL are at breakeven on diesel while they lose Rs 3.68 a litre on petrol, Rs 69.49 per 14.2-kg LPG cylinder and Rs 12.65 on every litre of kerosene, industry sources said.
India on Tuesday pitched for a stake in vast oil and gas fields as well as LNG terminals in the frozen Artic of Far East Russia as it looked to import more oil from the former Soviet republic as part of a strategy to diversify its energy basket.
Nearly 55,000 officers of 14 public sector oil companies have decided to strike work indefinitely from January 7 to seek higher wages, Association of Scientific & Technical Officer's vice president P K Sharma said in New Delhi on Tuesday
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