A meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO summit is being planned.
The era where nations thrived through rigid alignments is giving way to an age where the connective State defines power. For India, that era has arrived, points out Dr Nishakant Ojha.
Trump's new rules for how countries should treat him have led to the current breakdown in India-US relations, explains Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Wholesale price inflation dropped to 0.85 per cent in April as prices of food articles, manufactured products, and fuel eased, government data showed on Wednesday. WPI-based inflation was 2.05 per cent in March. It was 1.19 per cent in April last year.
Brent crude oil prices may rise to $110 a barrel in 2023, up nearly 33 per cent from the current levels, said analysts at Morgan Stanley, in a recent note. This is, however, lower than the peak level of nearly $127 touched earlier in 2022 as geopolitical concerns took centre stage amidrising demand. "Looking ahead, Brent oil price growth will decelerate even more in the coming quarters. "This comes even as our global oil strategist expects a rise in oil prices back to $110 a barrel by the second half of 2023.
After dropping a Rs 5,000 crore plan to fill parts of strategic oil storages, the government will lease out space in the underground rock caverns to domestic and international firms to store oil, a top executive said on Tuesday. India Strategic Petroleum Reserve Ltd has built underground storages at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Mangalore and Padur in Karnataka to store 5.33 million tonnes of oil that can be used in any emergency situation like supply disruption or war. UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has already hired half of the 2.5 million tonnes storage capacity at Padur and 1.5 million tonnes facility at Mangalore.
In trade negotiations, as in chess, sometimes you need to accept a temporary disadvantage to secure a better long-term position, points out Sonal Varma, chief economist (India and Asia ex-Japan) at Nomura.
Russia dominated Saudi Arabia in oil supplies as the world's fastest-growing major economy for fossil fuels in October, relegating the Kingdom to third place. Iraq was India's top oil supplier, according to the data from Vortexa. Saudi Arabia's decline in India's oil market has coincided with Russia's rise, and ironically occurred amid growing diplomatic ties between Riyadh and New Delhi. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud is visiting India this month to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In October 2024, Jindal Stainless challenged a Goods and Services Tax (GST) notice in the Delhi high court. It was about corporate guarantees issued to related parties by its former group company, Jindal Stainless (Hisar), before their merger in March 2023.
The public sector oil marketing firm stopped supplying fuel to the cash-starved carrier from 12 noon Friday.
Foreign brokerages remain cautious on the road ahead for the Indian equity markets. Though analysts at Nomura have revised their March 2026 Nifty target to 26,140 levels from the earlier 24,970, but the upside from the current levels is a modest 6 per cent. BofA Securities, on the other hand, has not made any change to its year-end Nifty target.
On a five-day rolling basis, FPI selling is the highest in 24 years.
Crude oil prices are expected to rise this year as Iranian oil sanctions will lead to a drop in oil supply.
The latest flashpoint in West Asia has derailed India's preliminary plans to resume crude oil imports from Iran, officials said. In January, officials of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had told Business Standard that the government had been studying proposals for the same, given that India was trying to expand sources of imports. "We are always monitoring the situation when it comes to crude flows.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora on Wednesday dismissed reports of diminishing oil stocks in Mumbai due to non-operation of ports after the oil spill off the coast of the metropolis.
The escalation of conflict in the West Asian region is expected to push already high logistics costs besides hurting trade in sectors such as oil, electronics and agriculture, according to exporters. They said that insurance costs for exports to the countries directly involved in the war could also go up, which will impact Indian exporters' working capital. Think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) stated that the conflict is already hurting India's trade with countries like Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon.
'If you align your ambition with India's rise, the peak of your careers will unfold alongside the peak of India's power.'
Essential and strategic items such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, copper, and energy products like oil, gas, coal and LNG are exempted from the 27 per cent import duty announced by the US on Wednesday, according to think tank GTRI.
'The government's priority is not farmers.'
'Geopolitical stability could remove the crude oil risk premium.'
The Iran-Israel conflict has further increased global economic uncertainties, impacting world trade, including India's exports, as it is expected to drive up both air and sea freight rates, exporters say. They said that India's exports to Europe and counters like Russia may get impacted due to this war.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 2.4 per cent rise in its March quarter net profit as store rationalisation in retail business and improved margins in telecom helped offset weakness in mainstay oil and petrochemicals business and higher finance cost. Consolidated net profit of Rs 19,407 crore, or Rs 14.34 per share, in January-March - the fourth quarter of April 2024 to March 2025 fiscal (FY25) - was higher than Rs 18,951 crore, or Rs 14 a share, in the same period a year back, the company said in a statement.
'That way you're not hostage just to US sort of exports to India.'
Come December, India may have to re-evaluate purchases of Russian oil if a price cap on crude oil proposed by the US and the European Union (EU) comes into effect. That impacts nearly a quarter of India's oil purchases that come at a discount, helping limit marketing losses for India's state refiners and enabling New Delhi to manage inflation by freezing pump prices of motor fuels. In September, India imported 1 million barrels a day or 24 per cent of its overall imports from Russia, which became the biggest supplier of oil to India.
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.
'With the US having entered the war, raising the risks of a wider conflict, those impacts could be even more damaging.'
A massive drone strike on the world's largest crude-processing facility operated by Saudi Arabia's Aramco has driven oil prices to their highest level in nearly four months. The attack has knocked out over half of Saudi Arabia's production as it cut 5.7 million barrels per day or over 5 per cent of the world's supply.
Russian oil supplies to India will continue to flow unhindered and suppliers will come up with ways to sidestep secondary sanctions, a Russian official told Business Standard.
'All the government and private offices are functioning.' 'Overall, life is continuing normally.' 'People of Iran are showing spirit and resilience in the face of adversity.'
It bought Rs 410 crore of electoral bonds between financial years 2021-22 and 2023-24, but Reliance said the company is not a subsidiary of any Reliance entity.
OPEC was in continuous talks with the World Energy Forum and the International Energy Agency to ensure market stability.
Russia has welcomed India's decision to not support the price cap on Russian oil announced by G7 and its allies and offered it cooperation on leasing and building large-capacity ships to overcome the ban on insurance services and tanker chartering in the European Union and Britain to continue buying discounted oil. The offer came as Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak held a meeting with the Indian Ambassador to Moscow, Pavan Kapoor, on Friday. "The Deputy Prime Minister welcomed India's decision not to support the price cap on Russian oil, which was imposed on December 5 by the G7 countries and their allies," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Corporate margins and profits in India remain vulnerable to changes in crude oil prices in the international market. Historical quarterly data from listed companies (excluding banks, finance and insurance, oil and gas, and power sectors) indicate an adverse correlation between corporate margins and crude oil prices.
If the war in the Israel-Gaza region escalates into a larger West Asian conflict, it could pose problems.
Ongoing strategic investment into assets abroad, alongside gas purchases being made by India, will soon allow the country to access as much gas as it needs, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on the sidelines of India Energy Week (IEW 2025).
Indian imports of Russian crude oil may stabilise or even decline in 2024 from record 2023 levels amid shrinking discounts, lower output, and a rebound in West Asian supplies, according to the ship-tracking data and industry executives. This may impact the billions of dollars in annual savings that India made last year. Imports of Russian oil jumped by a record 140 per cent in calendar 2023 to 1.79 million barrels a day (b/d) from 740,400 b/d in 2022, when Russia marched into Ukraine in February, and from just 102,000 b/d in 2021, according to the data from Paris-based market intelligence agency Kpler.
After HPCL, the government headhunter struggled to find a suitable candidate for the top job at Bharat Petroleum, as most applicants were narrow specialists lacking multidisciplinary experience needed to run a large organisation. The Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) last month interviewed a dozen candidates including BPCL director (finance) Vetsa Ramakrishna Gupta and its director (refineries) S Khanna but found none suitable for the job of chairman and managing director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), according to a PESB order.
'Trump is good news for us. Energy poverty is real, and fossil fuels are the answer.'
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have net sold domestic shares worth over $10 billion so far this month amid a shift to China, which not only offers attractive valuations compared to India but has also announced several measures to support the economy and the stock market in recent weeks. If the trend doesn't reverse, this will be the first time that overseas funds will yank out more than $10 billion from Indian equity markets in a month.
Defying high court orders, oil PSU executives on Wednesday stopped work forcing stoppage of natural gas supplies to industries on the nation's main trunk pipeline but aviation services and fuel supplies continued to be normal.
