Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and former Planning Commission member Kirit S Parikh, who heads an expert committee on fuel pricing, may join the deliberations, official sources said.
The ministry of corporate affairs - under new minister Murli Deora - has reopened for further investigation the cases of two companies allegedly involved in the unravelling 2G scam. A senior official said that the ministry was currently probing Swan Telecom and Loop Telecom.
Reddy, who moved from urban development to the oil ministry, got down to tackling the task straightaway with a brainstorming session with senior ministry officials on Thursday.
President Pratibha Patil today embarked on her maiden visit to Russia seeking to consolidate the relations between the "close friends and partners" in the changed global geo-political situation.
The agreement was one among the several agreements signed during the visit of President Barack Obama.
Cutting across party lines, MPs in Rajya Sabha expressed deep concern over the dispute and said the private contractor should not be allowed to enter into a memorandum of understanding for distribution of gas from a national asset.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora launched the ninth edition of New Exploration Licensing Policy, offering 34 exploration blocks, almost half of the previous round in 2009.
Even as the UPA is struggling for credibility and ways to fight corruption, the BJP is merely waiting in the wings hoping to earn votes by default. But that is not likely to happen, says Sheela Bhatt.
GX Technology case led to police cases against Sibal.
The Energy Co-ordination Committee, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would meet on Tuesday with gas pricing, gas sourcing and gas allocation as the main topics on the agenda, an official source said.
Talks between the government and striking oil Public Sector Undertakings failed late Thursday night over the officers' insistence on getting an immediate hike in their wages as the agitation threatened a major disruption in supply of petrol across the country. Deora is likely to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday afternoon on the issue after the meeting of the Union cabinet in the morning.
With terrorists using the sea route to unleash the deadliest attack on India in 15 years, an alarm has been sounded on security of oil and gas installations, particularly offshore areas, with companies offering to bear part of the cost of enhanced surveillance and patrolling.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora met Iran's Deputy Minister for International Affairs H Noghrehkar Shirazi on the sidelines of the 12th International Energy Forum here to propose bilateral talks in May.
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, who has issued a diktat to his partymen to greet Rahul Gandhi with black flags for his "Mumbai for all Indians" remark, on Friday attacked Marathi ministers at the Centre for "not protesting Rahul's anti-Mumbai statement".
The prime minister is scheduled to review the financial health of oil PSUs at a meeting with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and petroleum minister Murli Deora on Wednesday evening.
Taking Indo-Chinese co-operation in the oil sector a step forward, the country's biggest oil refiner and retailer, Indian Oil Corporation, has signed a memorandum of understanding with integrated Chinese national oil company Sinopec.
In the midst of a spat between India and China, an official Chinese newspaper on Friday spoke of a possible meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries next week in Thailand.
The dollar devaluation has seen revenue loss incurred by state-run oil firms on fuel sales trimming to about Rs 96 crore per day.
In the midst of a war of words between the two countries, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday expressed his desire to meet his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh.The Chinese leader's remarks come a day after Beijing raked up its claim over Arunachal Pradesh, questioning Prime Minister Singh's visit there on October 3. India hit back on Wednesday, reacting strongly to Chinese plans to get involved in projects in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
The union government is planning to release about 5.5 crore new LPG connections over the next five years, petroleum and natural gas minister Murli Deora said.
President Asif Ali Zardari is scheduled to ink an agreement on the $7.6 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project with the Turkmen and Afghan heads of state at Ashgabat on December 11.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are not on talking terms with expelled leader Jaswant Singh after he refused to resign from the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament, Union minister Murli Deora claimed on Friday. The Petroleum and Natural Gas minister, who is heading a high-level delegation to London, said senior BJP leaders, including L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Murali Manohar Joshi, are not on talking terms with their former colleague.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora on Monday launched the service, which will be initially available in the national capital and would be extended to other metropolitan cities, state capitals and towns.
The Petroleum Ministry has allocated additional natural gas from Reliance Industries' eastern offshore gas fields to three power plants to meet electricity deficit in northern states reeling under drought.
Had the government intervened at the right time, the controversy over an MoU that provides for dividing a national resource, would not have arisen, he said.
Lok Sabha MP Harsh Vardhan on July 23 wrote to Petroleum Minister Murli Deora asking why the government had kept quiet for all this while on the Ambani family MoU that provides for dividing Krishna-Godavari basin gas between companies run by brothers Mukesh and Anil.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has constituted a ministers' group to monitor the government's stand on the Ambani gas dispute in the Supreme Court.
"We are working on a (subsidy) mechanism, as it's very difficult to implement dual pricing of diesel," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said
Asserting that it had no role in the Ambani family dispute, the government on Monday declared in Parliament that it will do everything to protect its legal right to regulate usage of gas.
Launching a major global initiative for attracting foreign investment in the hydrocarbon sector, India on Monday held a roadshow in London for auctioning 55 oil and gas exploration blocks.
Dabhol is part of Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd.
"They (prices of petroleum products) should be linked to world prices," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told PTI when asked about the global crude prices now surging to about $70 a barrel.
India, which imports 73 per cent of its oil needs, has been hit by the surge in international crude oil prices that touched $96 a barrel last week. State-run fuel retailers Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are currently losing Rs 240 crore (Rs 2.4 billion) per day on selling petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and PDS kerosene as the government has not allowed them to raise retail prices in line with the surge in cost.
After eight rounds of auction, India is moving towards Open Acreage Licensing Policy, where oil firms can choose the blocks they want to explore without waiting for the government to put them on offer.
Deora told Business Standard that a substantial volume of kerosene was also smuggled across the border, since the prices there were much higher. He added the government may have to rework various measures taken so far to curb the menace.
GAIL has already been appointed as the nodal agency for the pipeline in India.
Concerned over the fuel shortages and petrol pumps running dry, the government said on Friday it would deploy central forces to ensure supply lines are not dried due to the ongoing strike by oil sector executives. "The government will deploy central forces wherever necessary," petroleum secretary R S Pandey told reporters even as petroleum minister Murli Deora met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to brief him about the strike by officers of oil PSUs.
The strike by the oil company executives under the umbrella of the Oil Sector Officers Association has brought the country to a grinding halt with over 90 per cent of petrol pumps across the country running dry.
The Oil Sector Officers Association, which claims to represent executives at 14 state-run firms, is protesting against a pay increase smaller than it had demanded.
Chidambaram met petroleum secretary R S Pandey on Sunday morning to keep himself posted about the issues regarding the indefinite strike call given by oil PSU executives from January 7, sources said. Sources said Chidambaram told Pandey that the group may need three to four meetings to form its view and the first in the series has been scheduled for January 7 evening.
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