Govt looks to take cooking gas to tiger reserves, Naxal-hit areas
The Oil Ministry has fixed the subsidy payout by upstream firms like Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India Ltd at Rs 15,546.65 crore (Rs 155.46 billion) for the April-June quarter.
The company has chalked out a detailed plan for development of its existing KG basin assets after integration with GSPC facilities.
Petrol price on Thursday was cut by Rs 6.07 per litre and diesel price by Rs 11.75 in Delhi as oil companies passed on a record reduction in excise duty rates to consumers. Buckling under pressure, the government had on Wednesday cut excise duty on petrol by Rs 5 per litre and that on diesel by Rs 10 a litre to give reprieve to consumers battered by record high retail fuel prices. Since states charge local sales tax or VAT not just on the base price but also on the excise duty levied by the centre, the total incidence of price reduction is higher.
Other shortlisted chief executives include Abdulrahman Ali Al-Abdulla of Muntajat, Peabody Energy's Gregory Boyce, Pailin Chuchottaworn of PTT Public Company Ltd, Repsol's Antonio Brufau and Ian Taylor of Vitol.
The petroleum ministry has blamed negligence for causing the devastating fire at state-owned gas transporter GAIL India Ltd's gas pipeline in Andhra Pradesh that killed 22 people.
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.
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.
Only 48.3 per cent of the rural households used LPG, while the figures were much higher in urban areas at 86.6 per cent, according to a NSO report.
A litre of petrol would have cost just Rs 13.64 in Delhi but for the number of levies and taxes on it which jack up the retail selling price to Rs 32.49 per litre, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.\n\n\n\n
The government plans to take India into the top 50 ranks in ease of doing business in the next two years with efforts such as shifting all applications for industrial licenses online.
The government allowed sugar companies and distilleries to make hand sanitizers using ethanol. Sugar companies supply ethanol to oil marketing companies for blending with petrol.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the group's biggest cash generator, overtook Vedanta to become the highest dividend payer in India in FY23. The IT services major paid Rs 42,090 crore for FY23, up 167.4 per cent from Rs 15,738 crore for FY22. The 10 biggest payers together shelled out Rs 2.06 trillion for FY23, more than double the Rs 98,371 crore for FY22.
IOC is building a 5 million tonnes per annum LNG terminal at Ennore near Chennai which is to be completed by 2017.
Changes in global oil and gas rates matter more to India's economy than other major economies because the country imports around 87 per cent of its oil, half of its gas in the form of LNG, and over 60 per cent of its LPG.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had last month told the Parliament that his Ministry has disallowed RIL from recovering $2.376 billion invested to develop offshore Krishna Godavari gas fields as output has fallen drastically and was way below the promised volumes in past four years.
Asked about the Congress's opposition to the GST Bill, Santosh Kumar Gangwar said no party opposes GST outside Parliament.
The price of petrol was hiked to Rs 101.39 a litre in Delhi from Rs 101.19 and to Rs 107.47 per litre in Mumbai, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers. Diesel rates went to Rs 89.57 a litre in Delhi and Rs 97.21 in Mumbai.
Moving from pricing control to a free market means stiff competition.
As per the current market price, the government is expected to fetch Rs 5,300 crore (Rs 53 billion) by selling 10 per cent equity or 24.27 crore (242.7 million) shares at discounted price to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India Ltd.
India on Tuesday pitched for a stake in vast oil and gas fields as well as LNG terminals in the frozen Artic of Far East Russia as it looked to import more oil from the former Soviet republic as part of a strategy to diversify its energy basket.
However, the number of transactions declined to 76 in January-March this year from 110 in the year-ago quarter.
Dispute resolution provisions in the production sharing contract remained unimplemented, while the regulator faltered, points out Jyoti Mukul.
If the reforms are implemented, multi-brand retail majors such as Future Group and Reliance Retail might enter the fuel retail space.
To increase gas availability for power plants, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has taken various steps.
A shortfall in LPG supply from Aramco has led to huge booking backlog across states. To meet the backlog, India has asked Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for two additional cargos of LPG, but that may take another 10 days to reach.
Economy has become a major cause of concern for the new government with GDP dropping to 5.8 per cent in the last quarter of the 2018-19.
The Centre will soon write to the states to bring uniformity in the Value Added Tax on oil products so that benefits of price cuts filter down to the masses.
Ambani is banking on new businesses to boost profit as earnings from producing oil and natural gas has slowed in the past three years.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday ruled out a cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel to ease prices, which have touched an all-time high, saying payments in lieu of past subsidised fuel pose limitations. Petrol and diesel as well as cooking gas and kerosene were sold at subsidised rates during the previous Congress-led UPA government. Instead of paying for the subsidy to bring parity between the artificially suppressed retail selling price and the cost that had soared because of international rates crossing $100 per barrel, the then government issued oil bonds totalling Rs 1.34 lakh crore to the state-fuel retailers. These oil bonds and the interest thereon are being paid now.
The picture of Shah and Mamata sharing a lunch led to talks in the political circles about a possible scale down in their attacks on each other.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's wish to levy indirect tax on petrol unlikely to be taken up
The Indian Navy said warships and aircraft were deployed to establish presence, provide a sense of reassurance to the Indian merchant men
Petrol and diesel prices, which have been on a freeze for the past four months in view of assembly elections in states like Uttar Pradesh, need to be increased by over Rs 12 per litre by March 16 for fuel retailers to break even. International crude oil prices shot above $120 a barrel for the first time in nine years on Thursday before retreating a little to $111 on Friday, but the gulf between cost and retail rates has only widened. With international oil prices - on which domestic fuel retails are directly benchmarked - spiking in the last two months, state-owned fuel retailers "need a massive price hike of Rs 12.1 per litre on or before March 16, 2022, just to breakeven and a price hike of Rs 15.1 is required" after including margins for oil firms, ICICI Securities said in a report.
Diesel price on Monday was hiked by 25 paise per litre -- the third increase since last week -- and more rate hikes for both diesel and petrol are in the offing in the coming days as international oil prices have soared to a three-year high. The price of diesel was hiked to Rs 89.32 per litre in Delhi and to Rs 96.94 in Mumbai, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers. This is the second straight day of increase in diesel prices and the third since September 24 when the state-owned oil firms ended a three-week hiatus in rates.
At the same time, the Cabinet approved reducing government's stake in select PSUs such as IOC to below 51 per cent while continuing to retain management control.
Use of 10 per cent ethanol-blended petrol has led to a saving of over Rs 41,000 crore in the foreign exchange for the country, minister of state for environment, forest and climate change Ashwini Kumar Choubey said on Wednesday. Speaking at an online event of auto industry body SIAM on sustainable mobility, the minister said the government is working in multiple ways to encourage sustainable mobility. "India recently achieved 10 per cent ethanol blending target 5 months in advance, saving over Rs 41,000 crore worth of fuel imports for the nation," Choubey noted.
The blaze at the Oil India Ltd's oil well is so massive that it can be seen from a distance of more than two kilometres, eyewitnesses said.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India declined by about 15 per cent to $12.6 billion (Rs 74,971 crore) during April-October this year, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
During the first round of discovered field auctions, there were 134 bidders for the 34 blocks on offer
