He sought oil bonds from the finance ministry to cover 57.1 per cent of the total Rs 77,000 crore losses suffered by the oil companies in 2007-08.
The ministry in a letter dated May 15 overruled Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board's de-recognisation of Indraprastha Gas Ltd, saying IGL was government's authorised entity for city gas projects in Delhi, NOIDA, Gurgaon and Faridabad. PNGRB had asked IGL, the company owned by state-run GAIL and BPCL and Delhi Government that retail CNG to automobiles and piped natural gas to households in national capital region, to stop all incremental activities.
Exports declined for the fourth-consecutive month by 10.3 per cent year-on-year to $34.98 billion in May, while the trade deficit widened to a five-month high of $22.12 billion. According to the data released by the commerce ministry on Thursday, key export sectors recording negative growth include petroleum products, gems and jewellery, engineering goods, ready-made garments of all textiles and chemicals. Imports also declined 6.6 per cent, six-month in a row, to $57.1 billion against $61.13 billion in the same month last year, the data showed.
Valuers have found almost no assets to pay for their claims against the Videocon group that entered the insolvency process in 2018. But the dissenters suggest that the money is elsewhere, possibly in the group's oil and gas assets, which are not part of the group's bankruptcy case.
India is currently the world's fourth-largest oil consumer after the United States, China and Japan
The case has been registered against entities such as the Halal India Private Limited Chennai, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind Halal Trust Delhi, Halal Council of India Mumbai, Jamiat Ulama Maharashtra and others for allegedly exploiting religious sentiments to boost sales by providing halal certificates to customers of a specific religion, the UP government said in a statement on Saturday.
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang, a guerilla outfit headed by its self-styled chairman S S Khaplang, has dictated the Indian and foreign oil companies engaged in oil extraction and fresh exploration work on the soil of Nagaland, "to stop all activities forthwith or face the consequences."
The petroleum ministry said there was no proposal to merge IOC and ONGC though the divestment ministry had made such a suggestion.
The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has granted seven authorisations to companies for selling automobile (auto) fuels in the country. These new approvals are under the relaxed guidelines for authorisation to market transportation fuels that were revised in 2019. This is expected to make the competition more intense in India's petroleum retail business. According to a top oil ministry official, a fresh marketing authorisation has been granted to Reliance Industries (RIL) under these norms. This is being done since RIL's existing retail marketing authorisation has been transferred to its subsidiary Reliance BP Mobility
A realistic approach towards tax and stock taking is necessary, rather than the old narrative of bringing all petroleum products under GST and playing the blame-the-state game.
At 5% customs duty, the govt will earn more than $3 bn
Move could fetch the exchequer Rs 14,000 cr
The Oil Industry Safety Directorate, under the Petroleum Ministry, carries out safety audits of oil and gas installations, besides formulating and standardising procedures and guidelines for design, operation and maintenance.
If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
The government is likely to come out with 10 per cent stake sale offer of Oil India in the second fortnight of this month, followed by NTPC's issue in the first 14 days of February, a Finance Ministry official said.
'We are engaging in substantial open market sales of both wheat and rice to control food inflation; special measures of market intervention in vegetables, pulses and oil seeds were also taken to cushion the impact.'
Wholesale inflation rate eased to 34-month low of (-) 0.92 per cent in April on easing prices of food, fuel and manufactured items. The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation has been on a declining trend for 11 months in a row and entered the negative zone in April. In June 2020 WPI was at (-) 1.81 per cent.
If 4,000 workers could work round the clock for the construction of the new Parliament building, then there is no reason why all infrastructure projects too cannot follow that model, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Indian Oil Corporation has approached the petroleum ministry with a proposal to raise oil prices by Rs 5.29 a litre and diesel by 4.54 a litre in line with the price band formula worked out by the government.\n\n
It not only wants the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to rework the under-recovery figure for the current year but has also decided to look at the issue of oil subsidies only in February 2010, when the next Budget will be announced.
India is the world's fourth-largest importer of natural gas, accounting for six per cent of the global market.
India is 80 per cent import dependent to meet its oil needs.
While Narendra Modi spent fewer days abroad than his predecessor -- 275 days versus Dr Singh's 306 - he has travelled more widely than any other Indian PM.
India may see a structural shift in supplies of crude oil with Russia emerging as a key source of fuels, a development that reduces New Delhi's dependence on West Asian oil, gives Indian refiners better bargaining power with price-setter Saudi Arabia, and improves overall energy security. The unexpected surge in supplies of Russian crude in the last few months, unthinkable until the war in Ukraine, may also deliver other unforeseen gains such as boosting exports of refined fuels to Europe, which historically has counted on Russian shipments. India has jumped on to the bandwagon of opportunistic buying of Russian crude but if calibrated carefully, Urals crude can be a long-term asset for India refiners.
India's exports rose marginally by 1.62 per cent to $33.92 billion, while trade deficit more than doubled to $27.98 billion in August due to increased crude oil imports, commerce ministry data said on Wednesday. The revised data showed that imports rose by 37.28 per cent to $61.9 billion in August this year. The preliminary data released by the ministry on September 3 had shown a 1.15 per cent decline in exports to $33 billion in August.
India on Monday lost the ONGC Videsh Ltd-discovered Farzad-B gas field in the Persian Gulf after Iran awarded a contract for developing the giant gas field to a local company. "The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has signed a contract worth $1.78 billion with Petropars Group for the development of Farzad B Gas Field in the Persian Gulf," the Iranian oil ministry's official news service Shana reported. "The deal was signed on Monday, May 17, in a ceremony held in the presence of Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh in Tehran." The field holds 23 trillion cubic feet of in-place gas reserves, of which about 60 per cent is recoverable.
A senior government official says the idea is to facilitate mutually beneficial ways to keep the supply going.
It cannot, however, use the money to invest in India or buy shares or companies.
The petroleum ministry has projected a strong year for the oil marketing companies though the largest exploration company, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, is projected to post a moderate gain in its bottomline.
Officers of public sector oil companies have threatened to go on an indefinite strike from August 21 if their demand for higher salaries was not met.
Reliance Industries and Essar Oil are keen on buying crude oil from Cairn India's Rajasthan fields even as the petroleum ministry struggles to find takers of the nation's most prolific oil discovery among public sector firms.
RIL wants to drill an exploration well on the D1&D3 gas fields in the KG-D6 block, Cairn on the Rajasthan block.
Putin said the 'policy' pursued by Modi is the main 'guarantor' of relations between the two countries.
After steep correction in valuations, these have turned attractive but upside will depend on diesel price rises and export-parity pricing.
The government on Friday cut the windfall profit tax on locally produced crude oil in line with a fall in international rates, and reduced the levy on export of diesel and jet fuel (ATF). At the fifth fortnightly review, the government reduced tax on domestically-produced crude oil to Rs 10,500 per tonne from Rs 13,300 per tonne. The levy on the export of diesel was reduced to Rs 10 per litre from Rs 13.5. Also, the tax on Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) exports was cut to Rs 5 a litre from Rs 9 with effect from September 17, according to a finance ministry notification issued late Friday night.
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