The Supreme Court had on January 17 set aside a ruling of the Gujarat high court that allowed Essar Oil the tax benefit.
"We have been importing 3 million barrels of crude oil per month from Iran. There is no change in that status... there has been no disruption in supplies... We continue to import same volumes (this month)," Essar Oil Managing Director and CEO Naresh Nayyar said.
The Essar Oil, Rosneft deal also helped Arpwood Capital, boutique investment bank, co-founded by Rajeev Gupta and Raj Kataria, to grab the second spot in the mergers and acquisitions league table.
Essar Oil, which was building a 9-million tonne per annum crude oil refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat, was supposed to complete it by April 2003, so that it would be qualified to get the benefits of the sales tax incentives.
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.
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.
Naresh Nayyar, MD & CEO, Essar Oil, tells Business Standard that a windfall profit tax on private oil companies will only worsen the situation.
As crude oil prices rose sharply, private companies like Essar Oil and Reliance Industries closed their retail outlets as they found it difficult to compete with state-owned oil companies, which were selling fuel below the production cost with support from the government. While Essar Oil has drawn up plans to re-open its retail outlets, Reliance Industries has decided not to go ahead with the retail plan
The sale of Essar Oil was India's biggest deleveraging exercise undertaken by any debt-heavy group
Essar Oil on Tuesday said it will set up 50 petrol stations before the end of this fiscal.
The government has asked Essar Oil to provide within 45 days documentary evidence of deletion of all charges on Ratna R-Series oil fields that were created for raising funds for its Vadinar refinery project.
India, the world's fourth-biggest oil consumer, recently offered Saudi Aramco a stake in refineries and petrochemical projects.
Companies and retailers have launched schemes one has never heard of.
Since May 1, the dynamic fuel pricing model has been applied on a pilot basis in 5 cities
Their first target would be bulk buyers.
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'.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Lower bank rates the main draw; $6 bn to be raised in next few months.
The government freed diesel pricing last October, providing a level playing field to private companies like Reliance and Essar Oil.
PSUs to wait and watch, IndianOil says losing Rs 1.37 on every litre of petrol.
The Oil Ministry has been trying since July to get an Empowered Committee of Secretaries to vet the separate price proposals of RIL and Essar but the panel has so far not decided to take up the issue.
The last week of March saw a series of new refining capacity going on stream. HPCL-Mittal Energy, Essar Oil and Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals (MRPL) were able to announce completion of capacity additions a couple of days before the seven-year tax holiday in this regard came to an end, on March 31.
In a temporary reprieve, India will pay for Iranian crude oil in euros through a German bank based in Hamburg, while a permanent solution to the payment issue will be explored at a meeting in Teheran next week.
Expecting oil prices to remain under pressure, Fitch Ratings said deregulation of diesel prices in October will help in lowering the under-recoveries (which is nothing but international petroleum prices minus the subsidised retail rates).
Even if the Paytm fiasco does not mark the end of the bull run, at least some sanity will return to the wild IPO market, observes Debashis Basu.
Oil ministry this week issued written instructions to the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-run firm to make a 'pro-rata' cut in gas supplies to all existing customers if the production from its KG-D6 field cannot support new customers, two sources with direct knowledge of the information have said.
Share prices of both upstream and downstream public sector oil companies fell up to two per cent on Monday. Even Essar Oil, a private fuel retailer, fell 1.50 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The three companies in separate presentations to the Kirit Parikh Committee on fuel pricing suggested immediate freeing of petrol and diesel prices from government control.
Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) will double offtake of crude oil from Cairn India's Rajasthan fields to 0.4 million tons this fiscal.
After briefly maintaining prices at par with public sector oil marketing companies following the June 25 price hike, private fuel retailers Essar Oil and Reliance Industries are selling petrol and diesel at a premium of Rs 0.50 to 2.50 per litre in some states.
Market regulator SEBI on Wednesday imposed a penalty of Rs 17.5 lakh on Delhi-based broker Suresh Bharrat for alleged irregularities in trading of scrip of firms like Essar Oil, Suzlon and Tata Consultancy S in the future and options market.
If crude oil prices stay at current levels, the Indian government would not be required to issue additional oil bonds to the four state-run oil marketing companies in the current financial year, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Monday. Oil retailers, however, are unlikely to cut prices of petroleum products in response to falling crude prices unless private retailers like Essar Oil and Reliance Industries Ltd restart operations and offer a lower price.
Essar Oil is in talks with Royal Dutch Shell to buy two of its refineries in Germany and one in the UK.
While some such as Hindalco, JSW Steel, India Cements, Essar Oil, Tata Steel and Jet Airways have already announced plans to raise a combined Rs 70,000 crore, there are many who are redrawing proposals to enter the market to raise money.
Ruias-owned Essar will take a 50 per cent stake in Kenya's only refinery in Mombasa, the African nation's Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi said on Wednesday.
Cross previous high of $72 billion in 2007 as Indian promoters overcome the selling taboo. Abhineet Kumar reports from Mumbai.
On the sidelines of crude oil price rise, Indian oil majors including Reliance Industries, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Essar Oil are eyeing exploration opportunities at the oil-rich sand beds of Alberta in Canada. The firms are believed to be drawing up plans in consultation with the central government and considering tie-ups with international firms for sand-oil exploration.
The finance ministry has restricted tax holidays to only new refineries run by public sector firms and has barred units under construction by private sector companies like Essar Oil from the benefit.
"There are eight companies (who have put in expression of interest)... RNRL is one of them," said A K Ahuja, managing director, Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd, the company that operates the nation's biggest gas-fired power plant and the adjacent LNG import facility. Others in the fray include state power utility NTPC and GMR. Ahuja said RGPPL will frame the bidding criteria and call for financial bids by next month.
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