Public sector oil marketing company Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will raise prices of petrol by 27 paise a litre, - for the first time since decontrolling petrol 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.
Even as automobile manufacturers are considering increasing the prices of their products, an increase in auto fuel prices is also imminent.
The government on Wednesday said there was no proposal to either merge Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum with Oil and Natural Gas Corp or Oil India Ltd with Indian Oil Corporation.
With the government preparing to restrict the number of subsidised cooking cylinders, oil marketing companies have launched a 'transparency' portal that allows customers to keep an eye on the number of cylinders sold in their account by the dealer.
It is in talks with a local player for a discovered asset so that it can have a ready cash flow in one or two years.
With an eye on bigger imports, the oil marketing firm may get its French partner Total to set it up.
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.
There has been a sharp recovery in the headline corporate earnings in the April-June 2023 quarter (Q1FY24), after a dismal showing by early bird companies. The combined net profit of the 983 listed companies that have declared their quarterly results, so far, was up 64.7 per cent year-on-year to record a high of Rs 2.68 trillion in the first quarter, but growth in earnings remained lopsided because most of the incremental gains came from a handful of companies. Moreover, the quarterly numbers showed a continued slowdown in revenue growth.
The three oil PSUs have told Air India that if it did not make the monthly lump sum payment, they will stop fuel supply from October 11 at six major domestic airports.
The fuel price revision on Wednesday is likely to wipe out the Rs 1,100 crore net revenue earned by the three oil marketing companies--Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation -- in the last one month, say officials from these companies.
The government will provide private companies subsidy equivalent to that given to state retailing firms on LPG, petroleum secretary B K Chaturvedi said.
The ministry of petroleum has approached the finance ministry to seek permission to give additional bonds worth Rs 10,000 crore to the three public sector oil marketing companies --Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd--to help them close the last fiscal with a profit.
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.
Many of the 37,000 petrol pumps across the country could go dry by Thursday if the indefinite strike by executives from public sector oil companies continues. Over 55,000 oil PSU officers from 14 oil companies -- under the umbrella of the Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA) -- began their indefinite strike on Wednesday demanding higher wages.
IOC urged the government to cut excise duty by Rs 8 (the current revenue loss) to Rs 6.78 per litre. It also demanded a cut in state-level taxes.
The government will take home Rs 4,022 crore (Rs 40.22 billion) by way of interim dividend bonanza declared by the state-owned oil companies in the last one week.
The drop in international oil prices has resulted in revenue loss of Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum dip to Rs 400 crore per day from Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion) a fortnight back. The basket of crude oil India buys averaged $111.09 a barrel in the second fortnight of August as compared with $117.37 per barrel in the first fortnight of the month.
The country's oil marketing companies are preparing for another round of increase in the price of aviation turbine fuel on July 1 as the average price of the fuel in international markets has shot up to around $160 per barrel in June from $150 per barrel in May.
The government on Thursday decided not to increase petrol and diesel prices, and issue oil bonds worth Rs 23,457 crore (Rs 234.57 billion) to partly compensate public sector oil companies for the losses incurred on fuel sales."We have kept our promise of not raising prices of sensitive petroleum products," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told PTI after a meeting of the Cabinet.
The government has directed state-run fuel retailers Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum to clear the wait list for domestic LPG connection within the next two months.
The retail losses that the country's oil marketing companies incur on sale of petrol, diesel, cooking gas and kerosene at subsidised prices have risen by 7.3 per cent to around Rs 440 crore (Rs 4.4 billion) per day in the fortnight ended March 31.IOC lost Rs 17 for every litre of petrol it sold, up from Rs 14.65 a litre on March 15. It lost Rs 316 per 14.2-kg cylinder, compared with Rs 303.65 per cylinder in the previous fortnight.
Losses on sale of diesel at government-controlled rates have hit a record Rs 19.26 a litre, sending state-owned oil companies scrambling for ways to cover the mounting losses.
All of these companies are present in India.
Oil India chief reveals plans of the upcoming IPO and future investment strategies.
This is to compensate for their under-recoveries on the sale of petroleum products during the current financial year. Indian Oil Corporation has been issued oil bonds worth Rs 5,817.27 crore, while Bharat Petroleum Corporation has been issued bonds worth Rs 2,144.32 crore. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation has got bonds worth Rs 2,038.41 crore. Prior to this, bonds worth Rs 60,967 crore had already been issued.
Investors shunned shares of oil marketing companies (OMCs) on Friday as they feared that the government's decision to cut retail prices of petrol and diesel could hurt the companies' profit margins in the near term. On Thursday, the government announced that OMCs will reduce pump prices of petrol and diesel after a record 22 months, making them cheaper by Rs 2 per litre in the national capital. The changes were effective from Friday.
Over 100 chemical storage tanks built at the Pirpav jetty near Chembur have been operating without approvals from the ministry of environment and forests for over 18 years. Each of these tanks has an average capacity of 200,000 kilolitres of oil.
Petrol and diesel prices were cut by Rs 2 per litre each as state-owned oil companies ended a nearly two-year-long hiatus in rate revision, just hours before the general election schedule was announced.
Getting compensated for at least 90 per cent of losses without government subsidy appears difficult.
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