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.
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.
Unlike the previous visit, where TDP MPs accompanied Naidu to meetings, sources termed the current visit as "low profile", with one-on-one meetings with key Union ministers.
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
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.
India's net oil import bill could widen to $101-104 billion in current fiscal from $96.1 billion in 2023-24 and any escalation in the Iran-Israel conflict could impart an upward pressure on the value of imports, ICRA said on Tuesday. The domestic rating agency said based on its analysis, lower value of Russian oil imports is estimated to have led to savings of $7.9 billion in 11 months (April-February) of 2023-24, up from $5.1 billion in 2022-23.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The first stretch of Dahej-Panvel-Dabhol pipeline, which will feed natural gas to the beleaguered Dabhol power project in Maharashtra, has been commissioned.
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.
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.
Several people are still feared trapped in the debris after a series of landslides that occurred in Chooralmala and Mundakkai of Wayanad.
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.
India's cities must switch over to piped gas leaving LPG cylinders.
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.
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.
A four-member panel of secretaries is likely to submit its report on a new gas pricing mechanism to the government by Wednesday.
The wholesale inflation rose to a 13-month high of 1.26 per cent in April fuelled by rising prices of food articles, especially vegetables, amid expectations of RBI holding interest rates in the policy review next month. The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation has been rising for two months in a row.
Concerns on lower natural gas transmission, LPG rate cut & APM gas price hike might be priced in but no positive triggers
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.
Custom duties, a major concern for the oil sector.
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.
The strong message from the prime minister is of continuity of policies he considers right with strong emphasis on execution, points out T N C Rajagopalan.
Once the deal is inked, the two companies will also jointly bid for exploration blocks under the ninth round of auctions in Brazil.
Eight candidates, including Najeeb Jung, former joint secretary (exploration) in the petroleum ministry, are in race for the job of chairman and managing director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
The Petroleum Ministry has asked the oil regulator to look into the marketing margin charged by not just Reliance Industries, but also state-owned GAIL India Ltd on the sale of domestic gas and imported LNG.
The acquisition of stake in Progress Energy Resources Corp for 1 billion Canadian dollars ($900 million) mark IOC's maiden entry into North America.
The government will now examine the report and decide on how and to what extend should ONGC be compensated for its gas being produced by RIL.
The seeding of LPG database with Aadhar numbers is above 55 per cent and overall Aadhar penetration is 90 per cent in these districts.
