India's dependence on imported crude oil to meet domestic demand has been a matter of concern for years. Delivering the inaugural address at the global energy summit - Urja Sangam - in 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called for enhancing domestic oil and gas production to cut the import burden. He aimed at lowering it by at least 10 per cent by 2022 - to coincide with the platinum jubilee of India's independence. But this target is far from being achieved and the country's import reliance has only risen.
State-run gas utility GAIL India on Monday said it should be exempted from payment of fuel subsidies as it does not get any upside from rise in crude oil or natural gas price.
A swift recovery in oil demand in India is not only helping the stability of the global market, it is giving huge fiscal headroom to the government in terms of additional excise duty.
The primary and immediate impact of a depreciating rupee is on the importers who will have to shell out more for the same quantity and price. However, it is a boon for the exporters as they receive more rupees in exchange for dollars. The rupee depreciation has wiped away some of the gains that would have accrued to India from international oil and fuel prices dropping to pre-Ukraine war levels.
Retail inflation declined to a three-month low of 5.1 per cent in January, mainly due to subdued prices of vegetables, fruits and other food items, according to government data released on Monday. The fall indicates that retail inflation is inching towards the Reserve Bank's comfort level of 4 per cent. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation was on the rise for two straight months after touching a trough of 4.9 per cent in October 2023. In December, it stood at 5.69 per cent.
A careful reading of the national income accounts suggests that after a strong recovery from the pandemic, there has been a significant ebbing of dynamism over the last three quarters to more modest levels recently, note Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman.
Civil Minister Praful Patel on Monday ruled out retrenchment among employees in public sector Air India and blamed rising fuel prices as the reason behind the present crisis in the aviation sector.
The National Aviation Company of India (NACIL), the entity that came into being after the merger of national carriers Air India and Indian, has increased its working capital limit to around Rs 9,500 crore (Rs 95 billion) in order to meet the recent hikes in fuel prices.
'China is struggling to get out of its property bubble.' 'Japan took 35 years to walk out of its equity bubble.' 'Bubbles can be difficult to forecast.'
Despite the increase, at Rs 64.32 per litre ATF costs less than petrol and diesel.
Airlines in India have suffered a staggering loss of Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) in 2007-08, and it could double in the current fiscal depending on which way fuel prices are headed, Civil Aviation Secretary Ashok Chawla said.
'The signal is crude oil prices will rise, I am cutting my subsidy. Be prepared, prices will rise.'
The government had last week hiked diesel prices by Rs 5.63 a litre and capped the number of subsidised LPG cylinders to six per family a year.
Large number of buyers has put purchases on hold because of a combination of factors, including high fuel prices, higher insurance cost, and firm interest rates.
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.
Signs of a strong pickup in hiring by companies are adding to the rosier outlook for Indian households.
The complaint was lodged by Mumbai-based Express Industry Council of India, which represented major express courier and cargo companies such as DTDC, Aramex India, Blue Dart, DHL Express, GATI and First Flight.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's largest oil firm, has walked away with half of the natural gas that Reliance Industries Ltd and its partner bp of the UK offered in the latest auction of the fuel used to generate power, produce fertilizer, turned into CNG and used for cooking purposes. IOC got 2.5 million standard cubic meters per day out of the 5 mmscmd of gas auctioned last month, sources with knowledge of the matter said. The oil refining and marketing company, which was the top bidder even in the previous auction of gas from the eastern offshore KG-D6 block of Reliance-bp, bid the volumes on behalf of seven fertilizer plants.
'Recent underperformance notwithstanding, equities should constitute a major part of investors' financial portfolio.'
When the Tatas re-boarded Air India on January 27 last year, the price of aviation turbine fuel was at over Rs 80,000 per kilolitre. Rupee was trading at around Rs 74 to a US dollar. The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was in prevalence - barely a week earlier, India had reported over 340,000 cases on a single day. Seven-day home quarantine of international travellers was the norm.
Come July, mobile phone prices are expected to be dearer by up to 10 per cent due to the steep depreciation in the value of rupee against dollar.
The government has cut windfall gains tax on domestically-produced crude oil to nil while continuing the rate at zero on the export of diesel and ATF. The government has slashed the special additional excise duty (SAED) on crude oil produced by companies such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to nil from Rs 4,100 per tonne with effect from Tuesday, an official order dated May 15 said. This is the second time that the levy, which was introduced in July last year in the form of a cess to tax supernormal gains of oil producers and fuel exporters, has been cut to nil for domestically-produced oil.
Last week, the Consumer Price Index-based inflation for the month had contracted to 4.4 per cent.
Not only do you need an effective and independent regulator, you also need competition to flourish.
Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain on Saturday said the country is not being run by a government, but a private limited company whose basic job is to protect the interests of oil companies and not the common people. He was addressing a news conference at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday. He demanded that the union government must immediately rollback the fuel price hike.
Even as the Group of Seven (G7) price cap on Russian crude oil enters into force as of December 5, India has been assured it will continue to receive the existing deep discounts on Russian oil, for the time being, informed officials. "We have been assured by our Russian partners of uninterrupted crude supplies at the existing rates for the time being. "There were a lot of reports of changes in (India's) buying patterns after the global price cap took hold.
India must be prepared for a big, fat fuel import bill in FY23 - barring any further avatars of the Covid virus - as refiners crank up runs, or crude processing rates, to meet the growing demand for fuels, and crude prices soar. Capacity additions by an Indian state-run refiner will reinforce the need for foreign crude. Demand for all fuels is expected to increase by 3-8 per cent next fiscal from 2021-22, reaching pre-pandemic levels, according to analysts and industry experts.
Lower crude oil costs and higher marketing margins are expected to raise the fortunes of oil marketing companies (OMCs) in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023-24 (FY24), while city gas distribution (CGD) companies could also benefit from lower spot prices of liquefied natural gas (LNG). However, in a break from the past, growth trends are expected to diverge for various segments within the broad energy sector. Analysts expect the earnings from gas production to go down for upstream national oil and gas companies such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India (OIL) due to the introduction of the new domestic gas pricing regime on April 1. After showing steep losses over the first half of 2022-23 (FY23), the marketing margins of OMCs have steadily recovered in four months.
In December 2019, the India arm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu surprised many with its ultra-competitive bid to become the transaction advisor for the country's largest strategic divestment in Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL). The multinational major quoted just Rs 1; the second-highest bidder, SBI Caps, reportedly quoted Rs 15-17 crore. For Deloitte, the motivation was to bag a prestigious deal adding a national energy company to its portfolio. No doubt, it expected BPCL to go to a marquee buyer in quick time.
Obama was responding to a question as to what his administration is doing to keep the ethanol plant.
Shedding their boring boxy structure, the MUVs of today are not only offered with their prime USP of space, but also offer amazing exteriors and feature-filled interiors.
A looming global shortage of diesel in Europe presents India with more than one opportunity to profit from strong margins. A shortage of the fuel, a key contributor to inflation, has been exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, and western sanctions on Russian fuel supplies. The slowdown in natural gas supply means the West needs diesel to heat their homes this winter.
'The long-term impact of elections is minimal.'
UP and Bihar contributed 105 seats to the BJP's tally in 2014. It has now lost 8 Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive losses in UP and two seats in Rajasthan.
The Reserve Bank of India on Friday decided to keep benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 per cent but maintained an accommodative stance even as the economy is showing signs of recovery after the second Covid wave.
India was the world's biggest importer of Russian oil in February, exceeding China by 20 million barrels.
Affected firms note practical problems in getting discoms, consumers to pay for costlier supply; viability shadow on investments
Link between oil exploration and markets can be used by India to great advantage.
He said the border situation remained a big problem as the military has been holding its ground for two winters.
The opposition party vowed to hit the streets against the "Modi-made inflation" and run a people's movement over price rise.
