The company and other public sector fuel retailers Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are currently selling petrol at Rs 3.68 a litre below cost and diesel at Rs 2.90 per litre lower than cost.
The government on Tuesday ruled out any rollback of last month's increase in prices of petrol, diesel and LPG, and said a policy for pricing of major petroleum products was under review.
US private equity firm I Squared Capital is dropping out of the race to buy India's second-largest state oil firm, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) owing to a complex deal structure and lack of financial backers for the transaction, sources said. I Squared Capital through its Indian arm, Think Gas was among the three suitors that had evinced interest in buying the government's near 53 per cent shareholding in BPCL. "The company has made a decision not to participate in the financial bidding," a source with direct knowledge of the development said.
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.
As of now, tankers carry petroleum products from India to Nepal as part of an arrangement which is in place since 1973.
India's energy consumption profile is varied.
The new model, named M800 Duo will have dual fuel option of petrol as well as LPG, the company said in a statement. The new M800 will be available in two options--M800 Standard with LPG, priced at Rs 2.05 lakh ex-showroom Delhi and M800 AC LPG tagged at Rs 2,26,000.
Dharmendra Pradhan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal have been elevated to Cabinet ministers.
Diesel prices should be immediately hiked by Rs 4-5 per litre, the Kirit Parikh Committee has recommended while favouring continuation of existing pricing principles for controlled petroleum products.
Petroleum ministry has suggested extending government subsidy on domestic LPG and kerosene for an indefinite period as the gap between domestic retail price and current international prices was too large to be bridged through a price hike.
"Deora's ability to be a good listener, and his understanding of business, as he is an industrialist himself, helped the empowered group of ministers reach a decision that more or less has satisfied all parties," a senior official says.
Sale of diesel, the most consumed fuel in the country, fell 12 per cent, while petrol sales fell 7.4 per cent year-on-year to 2.38 million tonnes although it rose 5.3 per cent from 2.26 million tonnes in July as commuters preferred driving to using public transportation.
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 Indian basket represents the price of Oman and Dubai sour grade crude.
The demand, which had fallen by as much as 70 per cent, has since recovered after lockdown restrictions were eased beginning early May.
The country's second-biggest bike maker Bajaj Auto today said it will launch CNG
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.
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.
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
To young professionals I would say, work hard, play hard and not be constrained by fads like WLB, says Sudhir Bisht.
"The Corporation has decided to offer a voluntary retirement scheme, with a view to enable employees who are not in a position to continue in service of the Corporation due to various personal reasons, to request for grant of voluntary retirement from the services of the Corporation," Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) said in an internal notice to its employees.
Low oil prices drove the growth in states' share faster than expected, says Abhishek Waghmare.
In a discussion in Lok Sabha on the COVID pandemic, members called for ban on international flights in view of the outbreak of the Omicron strain and demanded that the government 'accept responsibility' for deaths of lakhs of people during the outbreak.
The staggered increase in kerosene rate may not have the same impact of freeing up the fuel price as for diesel.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re-instatement of 5% custom duty on crude imports will help.
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.
