Fitch Ratings on Monday said uncertainty over the bidder consortiums and process complexity, including valuation, may lead to potential delays in privatisation of India's second-largest fuel retailer, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL). Affirming BPCL's rating at 'BBB-' with a negative outlook, Fitch said it continues to treat the potential divestment of the company by the Indian government as an event risk. "Bidders are conducting due diligence, but uncertainty over the bidder consortiums and process complexity, including valuation, may lead to potential delays.
Sequel to firm's announcement of cut in K-G gas reserves after long decline in output; agency says it expects decline in cash flows.
Police resorted to using tear gas and sting grenades to control the crowd gathering near Paris' Montparnasse train station.
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.
OMCs' Digital India move is likely to have an impact on more than 80.3 million Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana consumers, majority of whom are not exposed to digital transact.
India and the US had on July 17 signed a preliminary agreement for cooperating on emergency crude oil reserves, including the possibility of India storing oil in the US emergency stockpile.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday met Sri Lanka's top leadership and discussed a host of issues, including the debt crisis faced by the island nation, investments, promoting tourism and the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic as the two countries marked the 65th anniversary of diplomatic ties.
Addressing BJP workers at the party headquarters, Modi also referred to the next Lok Sabha polls, scheduled for 2024, saying he hopes that political pundits will note that his party's win in the four states has also made clear the verdict for the next general election as they had linked its win in 2019 to its sweep of the Uttar Pradesh elections in 2017.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said monetisation of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) assets is based on the principle of value creation for the government and investors and would bring about a paradigm shift in infrastructure augmentation and maintenance. Chairing the National Workshop with the states/UTs on Asset Monetisation organised by Niti Aayog, the minister sought the collaboration of states for the holistic development of infrastructure. She said India can become a $5 trillion economy, while striking the right balance between fiscal imperatives and socio-economic welfare, through active collaboration between the public and private sector.
The government on Monday proposed income tax benefits for people making payments through credit or debit cards and doing away with transaction charges on purchase of petrol, gas and rail tickets with plastic money.
UK's Cairn Energy Plc plans to bring lawsuits in the US and other countries to pierce the corporate veil between the Indian government and its owned companies such as in oil and gas, shipping, airline and banking sectors, to seize their overseas assets to recover $1.2 billion ordered by an international arbitration tribunal. The firm has moved courts in the US, UK, Canada, France, Singapore, the Netherlands and three other countries to register the December 2020 arbitration tribunal ruling that overturned the Indian government's Rs 10,247 crore demand in back taxes and ordered New Delhi to return $1.2 billion in value of shares it had sold, dividends seized and tax refunds withheld to recover the tax demand. With the government so far refusing to honour the arbitration award and instead choosing to challenge it, Cairn is looking to enforce it by seizing overseas Indian assets, Dennis Hranitzky, head of the sovereign litigation practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a law firm representing the company, told PTI.
Govt looks to take cooking gas to tiger reserves, Naxal-hit areas
IIP is expected to post a subdued volume growth in February 2017
Held on the first day of Spring by the Chinese calendar, it began with a performance by dancers waving glowing green stalks to convey the vitality of the season, followed by an explosion of white and green fireworks that spelled the word "Spring".
Regional States will be worried that the US's nascent engagement with the Taliban behind the fig leaf of humanitarian aid enables the return of US intelligence personnel to Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Working round-the-clock over the past few days, an Indian Institute of Science team is buildingan indigenous ventilator prototype for Covid-19 victims, and it is expected to be ready in the current month itself. A ventilator can be a life-saver for patients whose lungs are damaged by the Covid-19 infection. But India, like all countries grappling with this pandemic, is likely to face a large shortage of ventilators.
Crude oil, fertiliser and cement recorded negative growth
India's economy grew by 1.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020-21, restricting the full-year contraction to 7.3 per cent, official data showed on Monday. The fourth quarter growth was better than the 0.5 per cent expansion in the previous October-December quarter of 2020-21. The gross domestic product (GDP) had expanded by 3 per cent in the corresponding January-March period of 2019-20, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reviewed the impact of Covid-19 on the Indian economy and a possible second stimulus to boost sectors hit hard by the pandemic. Modi held discussions with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as the pandemic hit sectors from small industries to the aviation sector hard with millions of jobs at stake.
The FIR by the ACB was registered a day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the agency has been told to probe their alleged collusion over hike in prices of natural gas from KG basin.
The government has received three preliminary bids for buying of controlling stake in India's second-largest fuel retailer Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Wednesday. Mining-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta had on November 18 confirmed putting in an expression of interest (EoI) for buying the government's 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL. The other two bidders are said to be global funds, one of them being Apollo Global Management.
$10 billion TAPI pipeline unlikely before 2020
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.
Saurabh Patel, energy minister, Gujarat, who has handled the energy portfolio since 2002, speaks to Archis Mohan on GPSC's investment in the KG basin and says the criticism is politically motivated.
Rating agency Crisil said on Friday that Asian spot LNG prices are expected to go up in the short term due to power generation disruptions in Japan.
Stating that the economic costs of shutdown of the global economy are accumulating rapidly, Moody's projected that all G-20 advanced economies would contract by 5.8 per cent in 2020.
Post-cessation, activities related to the safe shutdown of the field are underway.
The warmest six years have all been since 2015, with 2016, 2019 and 2020 being the top three. The differences in average global temperatures among the three warmest years are indistinguishably small. The average global temperature in 2020 was about 14.9C, 1.2 ( 0.1) C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level.
While the Union Cabinet had in November last year approved the sale of the government's entire 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL, offers seeking expression of interest (EoI), or bids showing interest in buying its stake, were invited only on March 7. The EoI submission deadline was May 2, but on March 31 it was extended up to June 13. On Wednesday, the government said this deadline is further being extended up to July 31.
In a significant development, the government may allow state gas utility GAIL India to charge a marketing margin on sale of APM or subsidised natural gas.
The agency said the rating revision to stable with apositive outlook reflects continuing strong financial and operating performance.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced a statewide curfew for 15 days from 8 am on April 14 to contain the rapid spread of the coronavirus in its second wave. With Section 144 being imposed across the state, Thackeray essential services have been exempted from the restrictions. The curfew will be in place till 7 am on May 1.
The government is keen to close the sale before March 31, 2021, to help meet a record Rs 2.1 lakh crore target which Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has set from divestment proceeds in the Budget for 2020-21.
Markets regulator Sebi and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) are probing some Adani Group companies for alleged non-compliance with rules, the government told Lok Sabha on Monday. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply to a question said accounts of three of the six Mauritius-based funds, that have invested most of their money in Adani Group firms, were frozen in 2016 over the issuance of Global Depository Receipt (GDR) by certain listed firms. No freeze was ordered for their holding in other firms.
To prevent rise in air pollution levels, oil marketing companies and thermal power units were planning to procure stubble from farmers to make bioethanol and promote the central government's 'Agricultural Mechanization' for crop residue management. But both have seen minimal success.
Strengthening the portfolios of the home minister and the finance minister is a message that should not be missed, points out A K Bhattacharya.
Prime Minister Modi appreciated the vision of Putin for the welfare for Russia's Far East, saying the Russian President has opened up investment opportunities for India in the region.
The rating agency was hopeful that RIL would sort out technical problems being faced at its flagship eastern offshore KG-D6 fields where output has almost halved in past two years.
What happens to such a person's life insurance policy? Does the partner or beneficiary or assignee pay the premiums and continue the missing person's life policy in force?
'Since I felt there could be more, I had told the local authorities to screen every hostage carefully, since we felt that some could have been staying as guests.'
