The Election Commission on Wednesday issued notice to Petroleum Minister Murli Deora for his remarks on effecting a fuel price cut after the conclusion of assembly elections next month. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party had approached Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami over the issue contending that the announcement amounted to violation of the Model Code of Conduct enforced by the commission.
With Opposition parties calling for a nationwide strike against the hike in fuel prices, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora on Wednesday justified the decision, saying the increase translated to less than Re 1 per day on domestic LPG and 26-27 paisa a day on kerosene.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora will meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday in an effort to secure energy assets, including UK-listed Imperial Energy Plc.
Despite the high oil prices, growth in energy demand will continue globally, but there is need to reorient the approach in meeting the challenge, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora said on Sunday.
Deora is believed to have explained the oil ministry's position on gas pricing and utilisation.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has sought reconstitution of an empowered group of ministers to decide on allocation of gas from RIL-operated KG-D6 fields to new customers. Deora, who met T K A Nair, principal secretary to the prime minister on Sunday, has formally written to the Cabinet secretary for reconstitution of the eGoM on the lines of the previous ministerial group headed by the then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
ONGC Videsh Limited, overseas investment arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, wants to buy BP's 35 per cent stake in the $1.3 billion Nam Con Son gas project in Vietnam.
A friend of Mukesh Ambani should not be petroleum minister
Amidst the legal battle between Reliance Industries Ltd and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd over gas from Kaveri basin, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has hit out at the Ambani brothers for fighting over a natural resource that belongs to the government and the people of the country.
Unless the per barrel prices comes down to $67 level, the reduction in existing fuel prices, including petrol, diesel and LPG, should not be expected, Deora said while replying a volley of questions on whether the government would take a populist measure or reducing oil prices despite losses to oil marketing companies. Meanwhile, global crude oil prices today fell $10.52 at $96.37 per barrel in New York's main contract for November delivery.
Deora, who met Mukherjee on Monday afternoon to present his ministry's Budget wishlist, also discussed the deregulation of fuel prices.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora on Tuesday renewed his plea to the Maharashtra government to cut sales tax on petrol and diesel to give relief to fuel pump dealers, who were losing high volume business to neighbouring states where tax rates were much
In a relief to Murli Deora, the Election Commission on Tuesday gave him a clean chit, saying the Petroleum Minister did not violate the Model Code of Conduct when he referred to taking a decision on the fuel prices after assembly polls in six states.EC sources said that the Commission looked into the video clippings and found no substance in the complaint made against Deora.Deora came under attack last week for his remarks on fuel prices after the conclusion of assembly polls
Sudan, which had in 2007 defaulted on payment of installments towards the cost of building 741-km pipeline from Khatroum to Port au Sudan, agreed to form a working group to resolve the issue within a month, sources said.
The government is likely to decide within the next two days whether to hike petrol and diesel prices to provide some relief to state-run oil marketing companies, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora indicated on Monday.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a Re 1 per litre excise duty cut on crude oil to enable a reduction in auto fuel prices, necessary to contain the growing inflation.
The government on Tuesday ruled out any immediate cut in petrol and diesel prices in line with fall in global oil prices, but said a reduction may be considered once crude prices fall below $50 a barrel.
Jet Airways, Kingfisher and NACIL, which operates Air India, owe over Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) to the oil PSUs in unpaid fuel bills, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora would visit Pakistan early next month to sort out differences over transit fee for the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
Petroleum prices could head downward in the coming few weeks if global crude rates decline further, the government said on Saturday.
A day after agreeing to sell majority stake in its India subsidiary for $8.48 billion, UK's Cairn Energy Plc top management on Tuesday met Oil Minister Murli Deora and other key officials to clear any regulatory roadblocks to the deal with Vedanta Resources.
"You will have to wait for that," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told reporters. International crude oil prices are ruling at $74 per barrel on Tuesday.
The government advised the warring Ambani brothers several times that they should stop fighting, but failed to bring about a reconciliation, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Wednesday.
India will make another attempt to salvage the $22-billion deal to import LNG from Iran when Petroleum Minister Murli Deora meets the Islamic country's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Thursday.
"I would say there was a good response from the people (we met today), and something substantial can come out of it. But I cannot give you the names or details of our meeting," Deora, when asked to give a sense of the meeting by rediff.com, said.
A source said on Tuesday that 'petroleum ministry is likely to propose deregulation of petrol prices and gradual phasing out of subsidies on diesel to ease burden on public sector oil marketing companies' -- indicating a possible hike of Rs 3 per litre in petrol rates.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora will meet Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and chiefs of airlines and oil companies to discuss a solution for dues of over Rs 2,000 crore that the domestic carriers owe the state-owned oil marketers on fuel sales.
Crude prices are hovering near $100 a barrel level after hitting a six-month low of $98 on Thursday. Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey said that crude prices are expected to fall even further.
Though the government had earlier this year explicitly decided to compensate Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum for the losses they incur on selling domestic liquid petroleum gas and kerosene through public distribution system by way of oil bonds, the finance ministry has not issued any bonds for the three quarters.
Crude oil prices in July last year rose to a historic high of $147 and then plumetted to four-year low of $37 per barrel, all in just four months time. The minister said the global financial crisis which was the primary reason for the slump in international oil prices, has forced India to revise growth targets.
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.
Murli Deora, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, will be leaving for Pakistan on Tuesday. India and Pakistan's relation will get unprecedented boost if talks on Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas project proceeds on a fast track, said a high-level source in the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The biggest issue in realising the TAPI pipeline project is the issue of security through Afghanistan.
Replying to a calling-attention motion in Rajya Sabha, oil minister Murli Deora said the $4.2 per million British thermal unit price fixed for gas produced from KG-D6 fields of RIL was lower than the average of $5.51 per mmBtu charged by UK's BG-led consortium for Panna/Mukta and Tapti gas. It was also lower than the $4.3 per mmBtu price of gas produced from Cairn's Ravva Satellite fields and $4.75 per mmBtu for the UK firm's Lakshmi fields.
India has put in place a multi-pronged strategy, including faster exploration and acquisition of oil fields abroad, to secure energy at affordable rates, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.
The government will cut petrol and diesel prices when there is a sustained drop in global crude oil prices, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Thursday.
Within days of India approaching International Atomic Energy Agency for country-specific safeguards for nuclear power plants, the ministry issued advertisements in newspapers explaining what the uranium extracted energy can do to the nation's energy security. Energy-hungry India has a huge unmet power demand and the heavily subsidised diesel is being used as fuel to generate electricity.
The government on Tuesday clarified that no papers of sensitive nature were ever given to Mukesh Ambani-run RIL or its Canadian partner Niko Resources, and added they were provided only those papers needed to implement the decision on pricing of natural gas from their field.
'The price increases, particularly in respect of cooking gas, that is domestic LPG and PDS kerosene, have been quite minimal.'
The country is facing no shortage of domestic cooking gas at the moment, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. As on October 1, 2007, OMCs were serving 9.79 crore LPG customers through their 9,355 distributorships. OMCs have released 27.7 lakh new LPG domestic connections in the country during April-September.
With the rise of global crude oil prices - currently nudging $100 per barrel - the "losses" of the three government-owned oil marketing companies have gone up to a whopping Rs 240 crore (Rs 2.4 billion) per day.
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