The price of diesel sold to bulk users has been hiked by about Rs 25 per litre in line with a near 40 per cent rise in international oil prices, but retail rates at petrol pumps remain unchanged, sources said. Petrol pump sales have jumped by a fifth this month after bulk users like bus fleet operators and malls queued up at petrol bunks to buy fuel rather than the usual practice of ordering directly from oil companies, widening the losses of retailers. Worst hit are private retailers like Nayara Energy, Jio-bp and Shell, who have so far refused to curtail any volume despite a surge in sales.
If the reforms are implemented, multi-brand retail majors such as Future Group and Reliance Retail might enter the fuel retail space.
The government cannot exercise its sovereign rights twice over.
RIL, Capgemini, IndiGo among companies which have offered to pay their employees' vaccination cost.
RIL has maintained it had followed the production sharing contract (PSC) in letter and spirit and done no wrong and it has drilled all wells within its boundary.
Global oil prices have slumped and India has access to larger amounts of discounted Russian crude oil, yet refiners are not passing on their savings to consumers
Govt's move will facilitate entry of global giants such as Total SA of France, Saudi Arabia's Aramco, BP Plc of the UK, and Trafigura's downstream arm Puma Energy.
Government has put on auction the gas discovery area it snatched from Reliance Industries in KG-D6 block and the field that Cairn India is seeking to regain around its Rajasthan block.
Global oil majors may be teaming up with investment funds that are already in the race to acquire Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), a document detailing steps needed to complete India's biggest privatisation showed. Billionaire Anil Agarwal's Vedanta group as well as two US funds -- Apollo Global and I Squared Capital - had last year submitted initial bids to buyout the government's entire 52.98 per cent stake in India's third-biggest oil refiner and second-largest fuel retailer. Detailing the 'Next Step', the 'Brief Note on BPCL Disinvestment' said Transaction Advisor and Asset Valuer are to submit an inception report, bidders have to complete due diligence of the company and sale purchase agreement has to be finalised.
The Supreme Court on Friday granted six weeks time to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) to respond to the final CAG report which found alleged irregularities including in payments made to the contractors on drilling of D6 wells at the Krishna-Godavari basin.
Reliance Industries has accused CAG of exceeding its brief in the audit of spending on eastern offshore KG-D6 block saying hindsight is being used to question operational decisions taken 8 years back.
In a move that may boost the Indian hydrocarbon industry and bring more investments into the sector, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to give marketing freedom to domestic crude oil producers, allowing them to sell petroleum to any company in the local market. The move is set to be beneficial for major crude oil producers, such as state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India, and private sector majors like Vedanta's Cairn Oil and Gas and Reliance Industries. As of May 31, India was dependent on imports for 86 per cent of its crude oil consumption; domestic production sufficed the remaining 14 per cent demand.
The government on Friday slapped an export tax on petrol, diesel and jet fuel (ATF) while also joining nations like the UK in imposing a windfall tax on crude oil produced locally. A Rs 6 per litre tax on export of petrol and ATF and Rs 13 per litre tax on export of diesel is effective from July 1, finance ministry notifications showed. Additionally, a Rs 23,250 per tonne tax was levied on crude oil produced domestically.
India's exports grew by 67.39 per cent to $32.21 billion in May driven by healthy growth in sectors such as engineering, pharmaceuticals, petroleum products and chemicals, according government data released on Wednesday. Exports in May last year stood at $19.24 billion and in May 2019 it was at $29.85 billion, the commerce ministry's preliminary data showed. Imports in May rose by 68.54 per cent to $38.53 billion, from $22.86 billion in May 2020. In May 2019, imports stood at $46.68 billion.
Companies are ranked by total revenues.
According to sources, Russian energy giant Rosneft or its affiliates, Saudi Aramco and Reliance Industries are in race for BPCL's three refineries - Mumbai, Kochi in Kerala and Bina in Madhya Pradesh - 16,309 petrol pumps, 6,113 LPG distributor agencies and more than a fifth of 256 aviation fuel stations in the country.
Aramco also plans to invest in building India's largest oil refinery on the country's west coast.
The government should bring natural gas under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for a gas-based economy and raising the share of the environment-friendly fuel in India's energy basket, an industry body that represents the likes of Reliance Industries as well as state-owned firms, has said. Natural gas is currently outside the ambit of GST, and existing legacy taxes -- central excise duty, state VAT, central sales tax -- continue to be applicable on the fuel. In its pre-Budget memorandum to the finance ministry, Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry (FIPI), which boasts of members from across the oil and gas spectrum, also demanded rationalisation of GST on transportation of natural gas through pipeline as well as on re-gasification of imported LNG to help bring down cost of the environment friendly fuel.
If IOC is not allowed to run its own affairs, then we can see it close down in the next 10 to 15 years, warns Sudhir Bisht.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's biggest oil firm, on Tuesday reported a 31.4 per cent drop in the fourth quarter net profit as record refining margins were wiped away by a margin squeeze in petrochemicals and losses on auto fuel sales. Standalone net profit of Rs 6,021.88 crore, or Rs 6.56 a share, in January-March, compared with Rs 8,781.30 crore, or Rs 9.56 per share, in the same period a year back, the company said in a stock exchange filing. Sequentially, the profit was higher than Rs 5,860.80 crore in the previous quarter.
The Supreme Court has dismissed many petitions in the past but rarely has the country's apex court accused the petitioners of being "stool pigeons" of powerful corporate lobbies.
'Reliance on crude oil is still very high. Globally, natural gas is 25 per cent of the energy basket. In India, it has fallen to 6.5 per cent, from 11 per cent in 2014.'
Indian Oil Corp is ranked highest at 161st in the Fortune 500 list.
It's hard to say because of the winner-take-all nature of new platform and network businesses, but Reliance has not been an efficient user of capital, and Adani numbers are varied, observes T N Ninan.
Reliance and its partner BP on Tuesday dropped a bombshell, saying KG-D6, the country's biggest gas discovery, might stop production in 2015 if the government did not approve its long-pending investment proposals and revised capital expenditure plans.
As fuel prices surged in September, the government's decision to ask companies to cut price by Rs1 each on a litre of petrol and diesel came as a dampner for private players.
From India, Reliance Industries is the only one in the overall top-200 list and is followed by HDFC Bank at 209th, ONGC at 220th, Indian Oil at 288th and HDFC Ltd at 332nd place.
The government on Thursday more than doubled the price of natural gas that is used to produce electricity, make fertilisers, turned into CNG and piped to household kitchens for cooking, on the back of a spike in global energy prices. The price of gas produced from old regulated fields, such as the nation's largest gas field of Bassein of ONGC, will rise to a record high of $6.10 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu) from the current $2.90 per mmBtu, according to the oil ministry's Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC). The new price, which is likely to result in a hike in CNG and piped cooking gas rates, will be for six months beginning April 1.
The government is looking to sell shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) held through Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) and is soon going to appoint an intermediary to manage it. The plan is to sell about 8 lakh shares of RIL that will help the government garner around Rs 180 crore. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) will appoint an intermediary that will act as a custodian of these shares. The intermediary, based on its market analysis, will offload these shares at the best price, said an official. A final approval on the proposal is expected soon.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and two other public sector oil firms will install 22,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations over the next 3-5 years to support the nation's target to reduce its carbon intensity and reach net zero emissions by 2070. IOC, the country's largest state-controlled refiner by capacity, will set up EV charging facilities at 10,000 fuel outlets over the next three years, chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya said. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) said it will set up 7,000 stations over the next five years while Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) has plans for 5,000 stations.
The merged entity will become the third biggest refiner behind IOC and Reliance Industries.
In 2017, a consortium led by Russian state oil company Rosneft agreed to buy Essar Oil for $12.9 billion in India's biggest foreign acquisition of a homegrown company. Rosneft's buyout of Essar's assets was meant to herald a wave of energy investments in India - over six decades after Esso, Caltex and Shell invested in India's refining sector in the 1950s. But the government has tripped up in its efforts to sell Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), formerly Burmah Shell, a blue chip public sector company. Bidders include a couple of global funds and resources firm Vedanta.
Experts say local demand, government policies in retail and refining sector are attracting foreign players.
The government on Thursday allowed free inter-state wheeling of renewable energy used in the production of green hydrogen and ammonia as it seeks to boost usage of the carbon-free fuel and make India an export hub. Unveiling the first part of the much-awaited National Hydrogen Policy, Power and New and Renewable Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh said the government is targeting production of 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030. Oil refineries to steel plants require hydrogen to produce finished products.
The Prime Minister's Office on Thursday forwarded to Oil and Petroleum Ministry a letter written by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in which he has demanded that the decision to hike gas price extracted from KG basin be kept in abeyance till completion of a probe into the issue.
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.
If Reliance has to pay about one percentage point more for short-term money, the bond market could be out of bounds for many lower-rated firms after some time.
Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board in its July 2 order imposed a cost of Rs 100,000 on the three private fuel retailers who filed a complaint against Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum for indulging in 'restrictive and unfair trade practices and cartelisation'.
Mukesh Ambani joined Reliance in 1981 and initiated Reliance's journey from textiles into polyester fibres and further into petrochemicals, petroleum refining and going up-stream into oil and gas exploration and production.
At present, India has 56,999 fuel outlets. Of those, only 6,276 are owned by private companies
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