The fall in international oil prices has resulted in handsome margins for state-owned firms on petrol and diesel sales, but not all of it would be reflected in the cut in the retail selling price, as Finance Ministry wants to take away some of the gain by raising excise duty.
The two firefighters had gone missing after the well caught fire on Tuesday and their bodies were recovered by a National Disaster Relief Force team on Wednesday morning, said Oil India Spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika.
The Government of India has decided to launch a massive rural public works scheme, 'Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan', to "empower and provide livelihood opportunities to the returnee migrant workers and rural citizens". Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch this scheme on June 20 through video conference in the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.
The petroleum ministry has invited bids from companies willing to share Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd's proposed Rs 1,367 crore Mundra-Delhi product pipeline capacity.
The pipelines will be from Iran to India through Pakistan, from Turkmenistan to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan, and from Myanmar to India through Bangladesh, Mani Shankar Aiyar said.
The Kazakhstan government has assured India that it will consider allowing ONGC Videsh Ltd to acquire a share in the assets of Canadian oil company Petrokazakhstan, a top government official said.
The Oil Ministry has approved the sale of 10 per cent Government holding in consultancy firm Engineers India Ltd, and a public offering is expected in the second half of July.
The entry of a new developer through competitive bidding would delay the development of discoveries by at least 10 years.
Petrol pumps on Monday did business as usual as the day-long strike call given by Federation of All India Petroleum Traders evoked no response from the fuel station owners.\n\n\n\n
Replacing Iran, which is India's third largest oil supplier behind Iraq and Saudi Arabia, will not be a problem but margins will be hit as Tehran offers the best commercial terms
Anil dared the oil ministry to cancel the production sharing contract with RIL if it was really aggrieved and not challenge third party agreements.
The government is reviewing the previous NDA regime's ambitious programme to run automobiles on ethanol-doped petrol, a project which was launched to cut the country's dependence on imported crude oil.
Reliance Industries on Monday said its city gas would be cheaper by almost 33 per cent compared to liquefied petroleum gas being supplied by oil PSUs.
Crude oil import surged 15.4 per cent to 51.88 million tonnes as against 44.97 million tonnes in April-August and oil product exports jumped 35.7 per cent to 16.61 million tonnes.
Some of them have ambitious plans to fight the slowdown, while some would seek to revive their image.
The Union petroleum minister has assured the petroleum dealers that he would discuss with the Maharashtra government to bring sales tax rates at par with neighbouring states.
Domestic output is stagnating and the expensive LNG will meet the rising energy demand of the growing economy.
The Union petroleum ministry has proposed a 44 per cent increase in prices of natural gas sold under the administered price mechanism by state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India Ltd.
This follows a letter by RIL to the ministry, justifying the increase in capex.
The cap on cylinders would burden the Centre, which will need to compensate the states for the increased cooking fuel cost.
The government allows the oil companies to sell only a quarter of the total quantum of bonds they hold at any time during a quarter, so as to ensure that the market is not flooded with oil bonds. It has not yet decided on how the subsidy burden will be shared across stakeholders, how much of the subsidy from the government account will be given in cash and how much in the form of bonds, says an official.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar may soon meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to decide on fuel pricing in the wake of spiraling international oil prices.
Industrialist Anil Ambani on Tuesday dared the petroleum ministry to take back the ownership of gas fields from Reliance Industries Ltd if it seriously believed that terms of the contract were violated by Mukesh Ambani-led firm, which he alleged was wanting to make a super-profit of Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion).
The power and fertiliser companies should be prepared to pay higher prices of natural gas as the petroleum ministry favours economic pricing of the fuel, an official said on Thursday.
The group of ministers' meeting on Tuesday on raising natural gas price for fertilizer and power units and setting up a regulator for the oil sector remained inconclusive.
The release also points out that the prevailing domestic gas prices command a significantly higher price than the proposal of RIL.
India is estimated to spend $1.36 billion more a year for every one dollar a barrel increase in crude oil prices, says Subhayan Chakraborty.
A major policy to buy bio-diesel from growers at the rate of Rs 23 per litre was in the offing as the central government would direct oil companies to purchase it through its outlets in the country, a senior officer of Petroleum Conservation Research
Meanwhile, Uttarakhand, Kerala and Delhi have already announced cut in value added tax on petrol.
India will start exporting diesel and other petroleum products to Myanmar next month from the Numaligarh refinery in the eastern state of Assam, a petroleum ministry official said Wednesday.\n\n\n\n
Cairn India had written to the petroleum ministry about its plans for the block, said a person close to the development.
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