An empowered group of ministers headed by Defence Minister A K Antony is to consider an Oil Ministry proposal of abolishing the priority ranking according to which natural gas is first given to urea manufacturing fertiliser plants, then to LPG units, followed by power plants, city gas, steel and refineries.
The country's second-biggest bike maker Bajaj Auto today said it will launch CNG
After grappling with the issue for two years, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had on November 21 ordered that the margin to be charged, over and above the gas sale price, should be fixed between the seller and buyers in all sectors other than urea and LPG.
India's fuel demand in May slumped to its lowest in nine months as restrictions to curb the second wave of COVID infections stalled mobility and muted economic activity. Fuel demand fell 1.5 per cent to 15.1 million tonnes despite the low base of May 2020 and was down 11.3 per cent when compared to the previous month, according to data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the oil ministry. India was under one of the world's strictest lockdowns in May last year, which brought all mobility and economic activity to a grinding halt.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday alleged that the government's contention of oil companies going insolvent if prices of petro products were not increased was wrong and backed its argument by providing profit figures of the three oil PSUs in the country.
In a presentation prepared for the incoming Narendra Modi-government, the ministry listed national oil companies losing focus on domestic exploration as well as legal disputes around signed contracts with private explorers among the five things that went wrong during the United Progressive Alliance regime.
The agency found that PDS kerosene oil is being diverted to the open market at many places.
Concerns on lower natural gas transmission, LPG rate cut & APM gas price hike might be priced in but no positive triggers
The staggered increase in kerosene rate may not have the same impact of freeing up the fuel price as for diesel.
Low oil prices drove the growth in states' share faster than expected, says Abhishek Waghmare.
While the likelihood of these states going the Lanka or Greece way may be an alarming assessment, the financial situation of some states such as Punjab and West Bengal is indeed quite weak.
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on Sunday said in Bhopal that rising inflation is a major problem but it was necessary to hike prices of petroleum products because of the international situation.
The government is giving adequate publicity to the benefit to be extended to account holders, sources added.
A day after the Patna high court slammed the Bihar government for its poor handling of the second wave of the pandemic and sought to know whether it was enforcing lockdown or not, the administration on Tuesday announced imposition of lockdown from May 5 to May 15.
Natural Gas production from KG-D6 block has dropped to below 20 million standard cubic metres a day this week, from over 63 mmscmd peak output achieved in August 2010.
Around 15 years ago, when Reliance Industries (RIL) struck natural gas in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin off the east coast, the government made plans to supply that fuel cheaply to scores of generators that sprang up in India triggered by the discovery. Most of the plants, which account for 6 per cent of India's total generation capacity, operate sparsely after the KG-D6 area first failed to meet production targets, and then finally shut shop. Affordable domestic gas was why those thermal plants came up and the rate of the fuel today is why those generators hardly operate. Record liquefied natural gas (LNG) rates may yet again unravel India's ambitions to expand use of gas in industries, households and vehicles. Rates, while volatile, may stay strong this decade as developed nations with higher purchasing power embrace gas as the transition fuel.
Diesel prices may be hiked by Rs 10 per litre over a 10-month period and kerosene rates increased by same quantum over the next two years if a proposal being mulled in the Oil Ministry is accepted.
Moody's expects the new government to increase the retail selling prices of controlled fuel products -- kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas -- to help control its subsidy burden.
Reliance Industries Ltd has decided not to use its allocation of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin's D6 field for petrochemical production; it will, instead, swap it with gas available from other sources. It will use D6 gas only for power generation.
Doval and Salman also deliberated on a range of bilateral, regional issues including the missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities last month and ways to further deepen anti-terror cooperation.
Today we are importing over 80 per cent of our oil needs which gets refined into kerosene, LPG, petrol, diesel, fuel oil, naphtha etc hence not only all our energy needs but also fertilisers and plastics needs are susceptible to international crude prices.
The government's plans to reign in petroleum subsidies to plug the fiscal deficit next financial year are in jeopardy, as a whopping Rs 2.13 lakh-crore revenue loss is expected at the current levels of global crude oil prices and domestic retail prices of controlled products.
Losses on sale of diesel at government-controlled rates have hit a record Rs 19.26 a litre, sending state-owned oil companies scrambling for ways to cover the mounting losses.
Re-instatement of 5% custom duty on crude imports will help.
The government is selling its entire 100 per cent stake in Air India but wants effective control to stay with Indian nationals.
The pricing and marketing freedom for exploitation would be capped by a ceiling price.
Fuel retailers sell diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at government controlled rates which are below market price. The loss they thus incur is made good through cash subsidy from the government and dole from upstream firms like Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
An empowered group of ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, which decides on revising rates of the sensitive products, has not met since June last year even though crude oil prices have spiralled upward by about 50 per cent.
NDA's energy plan powered UP win, but it's not a winner yet. Centre has claimed to have saved money by targeted coverage but critics say the system is not yet foolproof.
Costlier petrol, diesel and LPG pushed up inflation to 7.76 per cent during the week ended November 6 amid fears that it could rise further in the coming weeks after the full effect of the second round of price hike in petro products during the perio
Crude oil import surged 15.4 per cent to 51.88 million tonnes as against 44.97 million tonnes in April-August and oil product exports jumped 35.7 per cent to 16.61 million tonnes.
If June 2010 diesel price is taken as the base, then the increase is a mere 2 per cent. By contrast, petrol prices have gone up by 23 per cent in the same period.
Petroleum Minister Jaipal Reddy said these measures would cost the government Rs 49,000 crore in the current financial year.
'I have no problems with the finance ministry or with state governments treating petrol pump prices as the last resort for meeting their ambitious spending targets with very limited revenue resources.' 'But let's do away with this smokescreen of free pricing of petrol and diesel and go back to administered pricing regime,' says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
The loss on diesel sales has inched up marginally to Rs 8.37 a litre even as a surge in international oil rates and a weakening rupee wiped out gains from a 50 paise increase in the price of the fuel.
The government has chosen to profiteer off people's misery and suffering, Gandhi said.
The annual under-recoveries of state-run oil marketing companies have been estimated at Rs 1.1 lakh crore, the government told the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Indian Oil Corporation, the country's largest oil firm, on Wednesday said it is losing about Rs 54 crore (Rs 540 million) every day on sale of petroleum products.
Essar Oil's 10.5-million-tonne-per-annum refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat went onstream on Friday, with its first product, LPG, expected to roll out by Saturday.
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