Hike import duty on finished products; Rationalize excise Duty on Molasses to 8% ad valorem or Rs. 375/PMT and on Naphtha to 8%, cut corporate tax to 25%, service tax to 5%.
Extend tax holiday for refineries in private sectors, reduce excise duty on Naphtha from 16%, exempt excise duty for captive consumption of intermediate products within the refinery for manufacture of exempted products.
The agreement, which will be reviewed at the end of five years, will boost profitability of the steel firms who had been buying expensive LNG or naphtha to meet feedstock shortage at their plants, a senior official said. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas had last week asked Reliance to sell natural gas to steel firms like Essar, Ispat and Vikarm Ispat to help the nation's most prolific gas field to produce at optimum level.
The shutdown of the gasoline making units would result in the production of high sulphur gasoline that cannot be sold in India.
These so-called 'negative crack spreads' have huge implications for India, which imports crude oil and exports petroleum products. Brent crude oil, the international oil benchmark, was trading at $62 a barrel on Thursday.
Inflation has risen to -1.21 per cent for the week ended July 4 against -1.55 per cent the previous week.
Union budget provides no major fillip to the ailing sector.
Contrary to expectations of the chemical sector, Budget turned non event.
The proposed chemical plant will use 2,50,000 tons of naphtha produced by IOC's Barauni refinery and the natural gas that GAIL plans to bring from eastern offshore and imported LNG through the planned Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline. The two firms by the fiscal year would prepare a techno-economic feasibility study for the unit that would take up to five years for construction.
Public sector Hindustan Petroleum Corporation is planning to invest $1.5 billion in its petrochemical complex project, featuring refinery, naphtha cracker and aromatic plant.
The inflation was 11.80 per cent a week ago. The index for fuel prices declined by 1.1 per cent on account of lower prices of naphtha, aviation turbine fuel and furnace oil.
The Dabhol power plant of the Ratnagiri Power and Gas Company is in trouble once again with problems in the recently commissioned second unit and delays in commissioning the third.
India's fuel consumption slumped by over 66 per cent in the first week of April as a nationwide lockdown halted economic activity and travel, which eviscerated demand. Petrol and diesel demand is down 66 per cent in April, while aviation turbine fuel (ATF) consumption has collapsed by 90 per cent as most airlines have stopped flying, industry officials said.
State power boards incur fixed cost of Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion). About 5,000 Mw of gas-based electricity generation capacity, built at a cost of about Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion), is lying idle due to the shortage of gas in the country.
Inflation based on the wholesale price index zoomed to 6.12 per cent for the week ended January 6
However, prices of certain other food items like vegetables and most manufactured products rose. Fuels like naphtha also became dearer.
The $3 billion Dabhol power plant in Maharashtra is likely to be completed by 2007-end, the Empowered Group of Ministers was informed on Thursday.
Maharashtra will get some respite from its power crises next week
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh met Petroleum Minister Murli Deora Wednesday to request for alternative sources of gas for the state's Ratnagiri plant.
Shaheen International, a Pakistani business group, is exploring the possibility of forming a joint venture with Reliance Industries Ltd to set up a petrochemical complex in Pakistan.
The Dabhol project, which has been rechristened Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd, has been running throughout the day since resuming generation May 1.
Excise duty cut to boost Polymers sector.
Inflation declined marginally to 4.49 per cent for the week ended October 22 from 4.71 per cent in the previous week
Inflation fell to 33-week low of 5.42 per cent for the week ended January 15 mainly due to lower prices of essential items like vegetables, fruits, tea, edible oil and naphtha.
Inflation rose to 4.62 per cent for the week ended December 17, from 4.5 per cent in the previous week mainly due to costlier fuel and non-food items.
India, the world's third largest energy consumer, has enough petrol, diesel and cooking gas (LPG) in stock to last way beyond the three-week nationwide lockdown, as all plants and supply locations are fully operational, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) chairman Sanjiv Singh said.an Singh, who continued to oversee the mammoth operations of ensuring that fuel reaches every nook and corner despite the loss of his father on the day the 21-day lockdown was declared, said there was no shortage of any fuel in the country and customers should not resort to panic booking of LPG refills.
Reliance Industries will export about 8-9 million tonnes of petroleum products or 33 per cent of Jamnagar refinery production this fiscal.
The Bangalore-based GMR group has bought out the stakes of US power majors CMS Energy and Public Service Enterprise Group in Tanir Bhavi and Basin Bridge power plants in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, respectively.
India's fuel demand in September rose at the fastest pace in more than a decade.
Mirroring industrial slowdown and impact of drought on economic activity, the petroleum product sales dropped by 6.5 per cent to 14.3 million tonnes in the first two months of the current fiscal as opposed to 15.3 million tonnes sold in April-May.
The duty reduction in feedstock would strengthen the domestic manufacturing in India making it more competitive leading to surge in exports of finished goods.
'The large scale and widespread shrinking of the labour force in November, the peaking of unemployment in October and the fall in lead indicators in October and November point towards a worsening of the slowdown of the Indian economy in the third quarter of 2019-20,' says Mahesh Vyas.
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