The agreement was one among the several agreements signed during the visit of President Barack Obama.
He dropped those perceived to be non-performers or whose integrity came into question, and also where it was felt they needed to learn a lesson or two in humility.
More than three months after RBI scrapped a long-standing payment mechanism used to pay for Iranian crude imports, India has resumed payments to the nation's second largest oil supplier using an alternative system.
There is no proposal on the anvil for an increase in prices of diesel, Reddy told reporters after taking charge of the new ministry.
The prime minister made it clear that the BJP stood for the welfare of farmers and was committed to them
Oil Minister Murli Deora on Wednesday said his ministry is not in favour of raising diesel and domestic LPG prices as response to spurt in global crude oil prices, as the move will add to already high inflation rate.
India's oil minister Murli Deora said on Saturday that the\ngovernment would consider a downward revision of fuel prices if international crude\nprices came down.
ONGC Videsh Limited, overseas investment arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, wants to buy BP's 35 per cent stake in the $1.3 billion Nam Con Son gas project in Vietnam.
PESO, an agency entrusted with the responsibility to ensure safety of public and property from petroleum products, said the vehicles used by the firm are not approved by it.
Oil Minister Murli Deora on Friday indicated there would be no rollback in fuel price hike and hit out at Opposition for "misleading" people on the impact of the rise.
State-owned fuel retailers IOC, BPCL and HPCL are likely to lose Rs 65,000 crore on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost during the current fiscal, Oil Minister Murli Deora said on Wednesday.
A day after agreeing to sell majority stake in its India subsidiary for $8.48 billion, UK's Cairn Energy Plc top management on Tuesday met Oil Minister Murli Deora and other key officials to clear any regulatory roadblocks to the deal with Vedanta Resources.
The Congress core group is meeting later in the evening where the implementation of Kirit Parikh Committee report on fuel pricing reforms may be discussed.
Oil prices could reach $100 per barrel if there were "dramatic" developments in the Gulf or elsewhere, a leading oil official has said.
Traditionally, Singapore and the UAE have been India's biggest sources of petrol and diesel.
The Modi government caved in under American pressure without even token resistance. Two countries similarly placed as India with high dependence on Iranian oil -- China and Turkey -- have shown the grit to stand up to Washington, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
After eight rounds of auction, India is moving towards Open Acreage Licensing Policy, where oil firms can choose the blocks they want to explore without waiting for the government to put them on offer.
He said Parliament in the past decades has debated a number of government decisions, which had caused tensions and social conflict, but it was now deadlocked by rival parties over a 'constructive decision' like demonetisation.
Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and former Planning Commission member Kirit S Parikh, who heads an expert committee on fuel pricing, may join the deliberations, official sources said.
Availability of natural gas, including imported LNG, is likely to increase in the country by over 52 per cent to 271.92 million cubic meters a day by 2013-14, Oil Minister Murli Deora said on Thursday.
Contrary to reports, oil PSUs will not make a counter bid to Vedanta Resources' $9.6 billion offer to buy Cairn India, as the oil ministry is disinclined to a rival bid.
India on Thursday won Vietnam's support for its bid for crisis-hit BP Plc's energy assets in the South Asian country, as Hanoi stressed BP must give priority to its partners in the stake sale.
Oil Minister Murli Deora flew into the Vietnamese Capital this morning with heads of bluechip Indian oil firms to lay a claim with Hanoi on BP's stake in two offshore gas fields, a pipeline and power project -- together referred as Nam Con Son, Vietnam's largest gas project.
Petrol is currently sold at a loss of Rs 6.68 per litre and diesel at Rs 5.81 per litre. Naik said the Vajpayee government had given Navratna oil firms the freedom to decide fuel prices.
Petrol prices in Delhi rose by Rs 4 a litre, while diesel rates rose by Rs 2 a litre, Oil Minister Murli Deora told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.
An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) may go with Oil Minister Murli Deora's proposal to free petrol prices from government control, which would trigger a hike of Rs 3.73 a litre, official sources said.
In a bid to lower the impact of an unavoidable hike in petrol and diesel prices, Oil Minister Murli Deora has asked states like Delhi and Andhra Pradesh to lower sales tax (VAT) on auto fuels and shift towards specific rates.
Though the government had earlier this year explicitly decided to compensate Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum for the losses they incur on selling domestic liquid petroleum gas and kerosene through public distribution system by way of oil bonds, the finance ministry has not issued any bonds for the three quarters.
The Petroleum Ministry has allocated additional natural gas from Reliance Industries' eastern offshore gas fields to three power plants to meet electricity deficit in northern states reeling under drought.
Criticising the government for 'keeping quiet' for long on the Ambani pact that provides for dividing a national resource, former oil minister Ram Naik on Thursday said the ministry should have made a stronger case in the Bombay High Court to protect its policy.
A prime minister-appointed expert group, headed by Kirit Parikh, suggested on Wednesday freeing petrol and diesel prices and suggested raising liquid petroleum gas rates by a steep Rs 100 per cylinder and kerosene by Rs 6 a litre.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a function to inaugurate the new building to house the Environment Ministry.
The government had in May last year disallowed $1.005 billion expense of RIL on the flagging KG-D6 gas fields for not implementing the approved field development plan.
"We will be guided by our national interest," he said.
Replying to a calling-attention motion in Rajya Sabha, oil minister Murli Deora said the $4.2 per million British thermal unit price fixed for gas produced from KG-D6 fields of RIL was lower than the average of $5.51 per mmBtu charged by UK's BG-led consortium for Panna/Mukta and Tapti gas. It was also lower than the $4.3 per mmBtu price of gas produced from Cairn's Ravva Satellite fields and $4.75 per mmBtu for the UK firm's Lakshmi fields.
Within days of India approaching International Atomic Energy Agency for country-specific safeguards for nuclear power plants, the ministry issued advertisements in newspapers explaining what the uranium extracted energy can do to the nation's energy security. Energy-hungry India has a huge unmet power demand and the heavily subsidised diesel is being used as fuel to generate electricity.
In the face of oil minister's comment that Reliance Industries Ltd gas to NTPC could be given at a government-approved price, the state-owned power major on Saturday said it will continue to fight legally for the fuel's contracted price and seek power ministry's help.
The Oil Sector Officers Association, which claims to represent executives at 14 state-run firms, is protesting against a pay increase smaller than it had demanded.
Congress, Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party and Left MPs stormed into the Well of the House, saying the people were being cheated.
The BJP-led government had raised excise duty nine times between November 2014 and January 2016 to shore up finances as global oil prices fell, but then cut the tax just once in October last year by Rs 2 a litre.
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