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.
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.
OMCs losing Rs 20 crore daily on sales, 18 months after prices were deregulated.
Petrol prices were freed from government control last month, resulting in a Rs 3.50 per litre rate hike in Delhi.
State-run Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum currently sell petrol, a commodity which the government freed from its control in June last year, at a discount of about Rs 4.50 a litre to its imported cost.
IOC and its sister PSUs, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum, sell diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at rates way lower than their imported cost to help government keep general price inflation under check.
Kaushik Basu, chief economic advisor in the finance ministry, said, "All I can say is, we are very serious about fiscal consolidation, and intend holding on to our fiscal targets, even if the crude price rises on a sustained basis."
While Indian Oil Corporation will get the highest Rs 5,817.27 crore (Rs 58.17 billion) of special bonds, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd will receive Rs 2,144.32-crore (Rs 21.44 billion) bonds and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd will be issued bonds worth Rs 2,038.41 crore (Rs 20.38 billion). The bonds will carry an 8 per cent coupon rate and will mature in 2026, the government said in a statement.
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.
With the new Bharat Stage IV emission norms coming into effect from Thursday, oil companies are gearing up to meet the requirements of Mumbai, an official said on Friday.
A series of rises in petrol price following its decontrol on June 25 last year has increased the state governments' earnings from value added tax on petrol by around 21 per cent.
The gvernment said on Tuesday that contingency plans have been drawn to maintain continuous supply of petroleum products if the employees of privatisation bound Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd go on strike.\n\n\n\n
The petroleum ministry has sought additional oil bonds worth about Rs 13,000 crore (Rs 130 billion) to cover the revenue loss on fuel sale in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal.
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.
Higher crude oil prices have almost doubled the under-recoveries of government-owned oil marketing companies -- Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum -- in the past three years.
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.
IOC and other state retailers had on September 16 raised jet fuel price by 2.5 per cent.
The bonds will help oil marketing companies - IOC, HPCl, Bharat Petroleum and IBP Ltd - to cover their under-recoveries.
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.
The 7-member committee, headed by former Hindustan Petroleum chairman M B Lal attributed the fire to lack of safety procedures and human error.
The combined debt of Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum has risen to Rs 115,000 crore (Rs 1,150 billion) as they borrowed to make up for revenue losses on fuel sales during the first half of the current fiscal.
Petrol and diesel prices are unlikely to be increased despite firming raw material costs because of upcoming general elections next year, Moody's Investors Service said. Three state-owned fuel retailers -- Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) -- which control roughly 90 per cent of the market, have kept petrol and diesel prices on freeze for a record 18 months in a row. This is despite the raw material (crude oil) cost surging last year, leading to heavy losses in first half of 2022-23 fiscal year before easing oil prices propelled them to profitability.
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 basket of crude oil India buys from overseas markets averaged $68.07 per barrel in September as against the August average of $71.98 a barrel.
A Parliamentary Committee asked the government on Thursday to seek approval of Parliament before privatising oil refiners Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd as the two were nationalised
Those in favour of a 15-day cycle for price adjustment argue that oil firms already have a mechanism of calculating the desired fuel prices on 1st and 16th of every month.
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.
The public sector oil refining and marketing companies Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation are back on the radar of investors as their profit levels reach record highs.
Petrol price in Delhi was hiked to Rs 77.28 per litre from Rs 76.73, while diesel rates were increased to Rs 75.79 a litre from Rs 75.19, according to a price notification from State oil marketing companies. Rates have been increased across the country and vary from state to state depending on the incidence of local sales tax or VAT.
The revenue loss, termed as under-recovery by oil firms, will be the highest-ever.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora is likely to meet Finance Minister P Chidambaram later this week to seek greater compensation for oil companies, who are currently losing about Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion) a day on fuel sales. Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are likely to see doubling of revenue loss on sale of petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and PDS kerosene to Rs 150,000 crore. The three fuel retailers together lost Rs 77,304.50 cr on fuel sale in 2007-08.
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