Three years after India declared its goal to become a net-zero economy by 2070, the policy design for achieving the target has begun, with the NITI Aayog forming dedicated multi-sectoral committees to prepare a transition plan. In 2021, India joined a select group of nations that set a target year for becoming net-zero carbon economy. At COP26 in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined a five-pronged 'Panchamitra' climate action target for India and committed to a net-zero target by 2070, joining nations like the US, the UK, and China.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation may take up the 20 per cent stake in a $ 2 billion liquefied natural gas project in Iran.
The government has lost its appeal in the English High Court against a $111 million arbitration award in favour of Reliance Industries Ltd and Shell in a cost recovery dispute in the western offshore Panna-Mukta and Tapti oil and gas fields. High Court judge Ross Cranston on June 9, 2022 ruled that the government should have brought its objections over the arbitration tribunal not meeting the required thresholds, when issuing the 2021 award earlier, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. Rejecting the government's arguments, the court said the objections are barred by an English law principle whereby a party cannot raise matters in new proceedings that could have been raised in earlier proceedings.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp, India's highest profit making firm, has suggested a new corporate structure
"Be prepared for a modest or moderate hike in the prices of petrol and diesel, after the meeting of the empowered Group of Ministers in the first week of January," M S Srinivasan, secretary, ministry of petroleum and natural gas, told reporters.
The government will set up an Appellate Tribunal to hear appeals regarding decisions of the proposed oil sector regulator, the bill for which is likely to be passed during the winter session of Parliament next month.
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Petronet LNG will partner with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation in the liquefied natural gas import terminal ONGC plans to put up at Mangalore in Karnataka.
Gas pricing guidelines stipulate that a new gas price will apply to all producers except RIL.
The government is pushing the public sector behemoth ONGC to involve private sector companies and service providers wherever possible to help raise oil and gas production, Petroleum Secretary Tarun Kapoor said Thursday. Kapoor's comments came days after the second-highest ranked official in his ministry asked Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to give away a 60 per cent stake plus operating control in India's largest oil and gas producing fields of Mumbai High and Bassein to foreign companies. "ONGC has to explore more so that it can discover more oil and gas reserves and bring them quickly to production to raise domestic output. The government is very clear that ONGC has to do more," he told reporters.
Reliance Industries' eastern offshore KG-D6 natural gas field will have a peak output of 80 million cubic metres per day for six years beginning 2011-12, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada said.
The limited availability of flexible (flex)-fuel vehicles in the Indian market and the slow rollout of ethanol-blended petrol by oil-marketing companies (OMCs) remain major obstacles to achieving widespread use of biofuels in the transportation sector in India. Recently, two Union ministers have emphasised India's biofuel potential, arguing that it has the capacity and potential to lead a transition towards widespread biofuel adoption. Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari signalled that this transition is well underway and urged car manufacturers to quickly adapt and introduce new biofuel-run vehicles, lest the government resort to taxing diesel vehicles.
The state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation may buy stake in Bharat Petroleum Corporation's 6 million tonne Bina Refinery.
The country may propose pipeline via China when Putin visits this year.
Public sector Petronet LNG Ltd will deliver liquefied natural gas imported from Qatar at $3.6-37 per million BTU, matching the prevailing price of domestic natural gas.\n\n
Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, Jitin Prasada, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural gas, said natural gas production in India has increased 75 per cent compared to 2008-09 and is expected to double in near future.
Research and Development plays a crucial role in augmenting capabilities and capacities, said a top official from the ministry of petroleum & natural gas.
A day after deciding to nearly double natural gas prices to $8, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday hinted that power and fertiliser units may get gas at subsidised rates to keep electricity and urea costs down.
With natural gas and cement showing decline in production, the growth of eight core infrastructure industries slowed down to 5.3 per cent in May against 7.4 per cent a year ago.
But after over $10 billion investment that yielded mostly natural gas discoveries, the finance ministry has ruled that the tax breaks would be available only to crude oil production and will not be extended to natural gas, sending the seventh NELP round in a tailspin, industry sources said. The petroleum ministry feels that withdrawal of tax holidays when substantial investment has been made in exploration activities is being viewed as the government reneging on its commitmen
Poor performance of coal, petroleum refinery products and natural gas pulled down the core sector growth to 2.1 per cent in December, 2013 from 7.5 per cent in the same month a year ago.
ONGC will submit a proposal to the Union government for acquiring Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd's entire 16.97% stake in Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd at Rs 37.75 per share even though HPCL is not keen to divest its holding.
The government has given a green signal to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's petrochemical plans but has discouraged India's largest oil and gas producer from foraying into fuel retailing.
After grappling with the issue for two years, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had on November 21 ordered that the margin to be charged, over and above the gas sale price, should be fixed between the seller and buyers in all sectors other than urea and LPG.
The first stretch of Dahej-Panvel-Dabhol pipeline, which will feed natural gas to the beleaguered Dabhol power project in Maharashtra, has been commissioned.
In an interview with Ajay Modi & Jyoti Mukul, ONGC chairman R S Sharma says uncertainties continue in the business even after decontrol of petrol prices.
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
The government on Tuesday increased the windfall profit tax on crude oil produced in the country and reduced the levy on exports of diesel. The tax, levied in the form of Special Additional Excise Duty or SAED, on domestically produced crude oil was increased to Rs 9,800 per tonne from Rs 9,050 a tonne, according to an official notification. SAED on the export of diesel was reduced to Rs 2 per litre from Rs 4 a litre and on jet fuel or ATF to nil from Rs 1, the notification said.
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).
ONGC has written to the government numerous times saying the state-run banks on getting assured business act in cartel, offering interest rates lower than even that on retail deposits.
Capital expenditure (capex) by 54 large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and five departmental arms with an annual capex target of Rs 100 crore and above has reached around 42.5 per cent of their annual target of about Rs 7.33 trillion in this financial year so far, a senior official from the Ministry of Finance told Business Standard. "The Centre is pushing the big public undertakings in the infrastructure and refinery sector to achieve 90 per cent of their target by the end of the third quarter," he said. The capex by this group of CPSEs stands at around Rs 3.1 trillion in the April-August period so far.
In a presentation prepared for the incoming Narendra Modi-government, the ministry listed national oil companies losing focus on domestic exploration as well as legal disputes around signed contracts with private explorers among the five things that went wrong during the United Progressive Alliance regime.
British energy firm BP Plc is the operator of the ultradeep sea block with 26.7 per cent stake.
India's cities must switch over to piped gas leaving LPG cylinders.
The Ministry recently issued an order saying 'no authorisation from Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board is required for setting up of a CNG station.' PNGRB has been since 2009 issuing licences to entities for city gas distribution networks, essentially for retailing compressed natural gas to automobiles and piped cooking gas (piped natural gas or PNG) to households.
Singapore-based Alert Disaster Control, one of the largest disaster management companies in the oil and gas sector, has already joined the team of experts from ONGC and OIL, reports Shine Jacob.