Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada has said state-run oil companies have the freedom to fix petrol prices, but the government will step in if rates shoot up "indiscriminately".
On the agreement of Uranium exports to India from Australia, he said the two countries were working on it and there has been 'good progress'.
Struggling to meet budget targets, the government had in the just concluded fiscal asked cash-rich PSUs to pay second interim dividend as well as undertake share buyback.
The Mahindra group's Igatpuri plant becomes the first in India to be declared carbon-neutral. Ashish Narsale / Rediff.com finds out how this was achieved.
Overnight, the Wall Street closed on a flatter note.
The multilateral lending agency holds 3.9 crore (Rs 39 million) shares in Petronet LNG, which at today's trading price of Rs 114.85 is worth Rs 448 crore (Rs 4.48 billion).
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Experts say local demand, government policies in retail and refining sector are attracting foreign players.
Credit Suisse said $5.6 may work for Reliance Industries' R-Series gas field in the KG-D6 block but the economics for its satellite fields and NEC-25 block are uncertain.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries
The rising oil prices, growing awareness about environment friendly cars has turned the attention of car manufacturers to alternative fuels like LPG, electric cars and dual fuel cars.
Availability of natural gas, including imported LNG, is likely to increase in the country by over 52 per cent to 271.92 million cubic meters a day by 2013-14, Oil Minister Murli Deora said on Thursday.
With the government reducing the net worth for new entities in fuel-marketing space to Rs 250 crore, the market is open for new players like Total, Adani, and Saudi Aramco -- and even supermarkets - to open fuel outlets.
Nearly 23 people were feared dead after a boat carrying about 40 suspected asylum seekers sank on Monday, hundreds of nautical miles off the Cocos Islands, west of Australia.
Piped cooking gas rates are also increased by Re 1 with effect from midnight.
Gas Authority of India Ltd, which signed a memorandum of understanding with the state government recently, will spend Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) this year to lay the pipeline, a senior company official said.
Custom duties, a major concern for the oil sector.
In a report released at the VI Asia Gas Partnership Summit, Mckinsey said the current demand of 166 mmscmd -- made up of nearly 132 mmscmd supplies from domestic fields and the rest from imported LNG -- is likely to rise to at least a minimum of 230 mmscmd and a maximum of 320 mmscmd by 2015.
The government had this month more than doubled RGPPL's allocation from KG-D6 to 5.67 million standard cubic meters per day that will help generate about 1,000 MW of electricity.
The beleaguered Dabhol power plant will from October 1 start buying natural gas from Reliance Industries to cut electricity generation cost at the nation's largest gas-fired unit.
This is the best time to be in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today as he wooed top Australian corporate honchos to invest in the country which is undergoing reforms to improve business environment.
'The fact that Modi and Xi exuded confidence to accelerate the negotiations for a border settlement alone underscores that the Russia-India-China triangle has become very dynamic,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The agreement, which will be reviewed at the end of five years, will boost profitability of the steel firms who had been buying expensive LNG or naphtha to meet feedstock shortage at their plants, a senior official said. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas had last week asked Reliance to sell natural gas to steel firms like Essar, Ispat and Vikarm Ispat to help the nation's most prolific gas field to produce at optimum level.
Petronet LNG, which operates a recently expanded ten-million-tonne gas regassification plant in Dahej on the west coast, is exploring a swap option with the gas from the Krishna-Godavari field (K-G D6) on the east coast owned by Reliance Industries Ltd.
RIL has complained the to power ministry about NTPC's reluctance to sign an agreement to buy gas from it and said that the power PSU stands to lose Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion)on buying imported LNG.
Known for stable returns, near debt-free status and dividend track record, these 10 PSU stocks are worth buying now.
The proposed chemical plant will use 2,50,000 tons of naphtha produced by IOC's Barauni refinery and the natural gas that GAIL plans to bring from eastern offshore and imported LNG through the planned Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline. The two firms by the fiscal year would prepare a techno-economic feasibility study for the unit that would take up to five years for construction.
UBS Investment Research in its latest report estimated that ONGC and GSPC may get at least $5.5 per million British thermal unit for natural gas they will pump out from their respective Krishna-Godavari basin blocks. RIL is to get a fixed price of $4.2 per mmBtu for gas it would produce from Dhirubhai-1 and 3 fields in KG-D6 block from December-January, for the next five years.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The top gainers on the Sensex are Gail(India), HDFC, Infosys.
After GAIL, Indian Oil Corp has expressed interest in buying out Asian Development Bank's 5.2 per cent stake in Petronet LNG Ltd, company chairman Sarthak Behuria said. However, if the state-run promoters of Petronet are not allowed to raise stake in the company for fear of it becoming a public sector unit, Behuria suggested selling ADB's shareholding to the public.
The 1,967 MW plant has not been operating since August because of stoppage of natural gas supplies from domestic fields.
ONGC and the Hinduja group are lining up investment of close to $20 billion in exploration assets in Iran and a refinery and LNG terminal in India.
India is being increasingly marginalised in Iran's energy sector for reasons which range from political to economic. Its attempts at securing oil and gas blocks in the country and importing gas (as LNG and through a pipeline) seem to be hitting a dead end. The latest setback for India is the agreement between Iran and Chinese Sinopec for the Yadavaran oil and gas field. This effectively pushes out ONGC Videsh - the government's overseas acquisition vehicle.
Reliance Industries has made drastic changes in gas supply contracts that will jack up its KG-D6 gas price by 10 per cent over and above the new rate of $8.3 coming into effect from next month.
Holding the Centre responsible for putting Gujarat in a tricky situation, state Petrochemicals Minister Saurabh Patel on Monday informed the Assembly that with the scrapping of gas purchase agreements, Gujarat would not be able to get gas from April this year.
New Delhi The government has decided not to sell the Dabhol power plant, which has been struggling thanks to huge debts it owes to the contractors.
The bank guarantee, which will be equivalent to the incremental revenue that RIL will get from the new gas price, will be encashed if it is proved that the company hoarded gas or deliberately suppressed production at the main D1&D3 fields in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block since 2010-11.
Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd, the joint venture of state-run GAIL India and NTPC Ltd which owns the 2,150-MW power plant and the adjoining LNG import terminal, plans an IPO to raise Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion), company Chairman R K Goel told reporters in New Delhi. The Dabhol plant will be fully operational by next month when the third generating unit is commissioned, he said adding that currently, two units were generating about 1,100 MW electricity.