"We certainly are interested in bidding but the valuations are too high," mining baron Anil Agarwal said. "The bid document is not yet out and we will carefully evaluate bidding once the offer document is out." He said share price has moved up 40-50 per cent since the time the government announced its plan to sell stake in November last year.
The prices were reduced after the international crude oil prices witnessed a downward trend due to slump in demand. The Brent also fell by $0.86 per barrel and was trading at $50.50 per barrel after coronavirus deaths and cases increased all over the world.
The commercial capacity of NTPC and NTPC group will become 49,695 MW and 58,156 MW respectively, the filing added.
“You cannot destroy the ecology. You can consider keeping it out of ecologically fragile areas,” the chief justice said, suggesting a review of all power projects in the country situated in such areas.
Domestic rates of petrol and diesel, down about 4 a litre since mid-January, are set to decline further as crude oil slumped to a 13-month low on Thursday to about $52/barrel on fears that the Covid-19 outbreak may take a heavy toll on global economic growth and oil demand.
The development piles up the pressure on state governments to take action nearly one-and-a-half years after the Supreme Court asked the central power regulator to consider increasing tariffs for fuel cost increase in the case of three power companies.
The regulator, Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, which has distributed 136 licences in the past two years and aims to award licences for another 50 districts this year, expects the proposed changes to help expedite financial closure for current and future licensees and speed up work programme.
Softbank-backed SB Energy, AMP Energy and French state-run power major EDF won 600 MW, 100 MW and 300 MW, respectively, at a tariff of Rs 2.50 per unit, while Renew Power won 200 MW at Rs 2.51 per unit.
Petrol is down Rs 3.74 a litre and diesel Rs 4.41 a litre since mid-January. In Delhi, petrol was priced at Rs 71.96 and diesel Rs 64.65 a litre on Thursday. State fuel retailers take 15-day moving average of international rates of fuels and factor in the exchange rate to calculate domestic prices of petrol and diesel daily.
Actis will acquire the Acme assets through its global infrastructure vertical. The fund has been investing in the Indian renewable energy space and has its own platform — Sprng Energy — which has projects with a total capacity of 1.7 GW in India. That comprises 750 MW of solar and 797 MW of wind energy projects under execution besides 194 MW of solar power under operation.
Both nations need to jointly seek to shore up efficiency improvement and productivity gains in energy economy.
The statement added the Refinery which has embarked on a massive expansion plan from 3 MMTPA to 9 MMTPA has been configured to produce BS VI compliant fuels from its new facilities.
The bulk of the incremental demand will come from city gas distribution (CGD) operations being rolled out in 400 districts. As much as 52 mmscmd of additional demand will come from retailing of CNG to automobiles and piped natural gas to industries and households, it said.
The company is looking at new avenues of fly ash management. It has also signed 25 MoUs for supply of about 260 lakh m3 of fly ash for road projects. The supply of another 160 lakh m3 ash is under process, an official statement said. NTPC is putting all efforts to achieve an overall ash utilization of 75% from across its power plants.
The planned 25 crore prepaid meters are expected to raise enough revenue to cover the costs and lead to savings for state power distributors. The govt will run an auction for the contract to install the meters, which are being called a “game changer” for the sector. The systems will provide discoms with real-time data on consumption of each consumer.
The negotiations are over building six AP1000 reactors. ET has learnt that India wants to model the plant on a facility in the US and not on plants in China.
“Yes, we are interested in BPCL. There are synergies with our exploration business. We will look at it carefully when the actual offer is made,” he said. Even before the government invites bid, Anil Agarwal has been closely watching the share price movement of BPCL, which has moved in the range of Rs 308 to Rs 550 in the past 52 weeks.
In 2019, India increased its intake of oil from the US to about 1,84,000 barrels per day, four times more than in 2018, and up from zero imports just four years ago. India’s energy imports from the US would reach $10 billion this year.
According to Kumar, the Maharashtra government had given mandate for 800 mw of solar power, of which EESL has already operationalised 100 MW. Rajasthan has given EESL the mandate to set up 113 MW of solar distributed generation projects.
Recently, the Centre allocated Rajasthan a 25,000 MW ultra mega renewable energy park. The state government has identified land bank of 125,000 hectares in three districts — Bikaner, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur—for this park.
In November, when RIL-BP offered 5 million metric standard cubic meters a day (mmscmd) of gas proposed to be produced from its KG Basin field, the prices quoted in the auction were very close to the floor rate fixed by producers.
Government's ambitious 40 gigawatt rooftop solar power generation project might not be fulfilled by 2022 because, according to industry experts, electricity distribution companies in several states have been reluctant to support installation and integration of rooftop solar energy because of potential revenue loss for each unit of power generated.
Each state in India, in its unique way, is putting obstacles to the green energy space that was once considered a sunshine sector. Apart from Andhra’s infamous bid to renegotiate renewable contracts, govts in Telangana, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are also not letting green plants breathe easy, despite these projects enjoying 'must-run' status.
It is really time for India to invest quickly into new research areas like the use of solar power in industry and making of an efficient battery. A respected global technology leader may head the initiative. Any breakthrough will give us a stake in the new exciting energy future and a possible windfall dividend in a short time. And help in reducing import dependence.
The downstream regulator is planning to waive a key condition for city gas distributors — of signing natural gas purchase pacts within 180 days from the award of licence. This followed after the companies’ reluctance to go for such deals amid a global supply glut that has led to a sharp decline in prices and amplified volatility.
The US has emerged as an important energy supplier for India, with total crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports worth an estimated $6.7 billion, officials said. Imports of the two commodities in April-December 2019 have already surpassed the shipments during the entire previous fiscal year.
GAIL, which recorded a profit of Rs 6,000 crore on a revenue of Rs 75,000 crore in the previous fiscal, plans to double its revenue and expand profit by 50% in five years, aided by a planned capex of Rs 1lakh crore in new pipelines, city gas and petrochemicals projects.
GAIL India received a fresh demand from the government on telecom dues after the latest ruling by the Supreme Court earlier this month on the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) issue. The fresh demand is much less than the original Rs 1.83 lakh crore and is for just one year, said chairman Manoj Jain.
Coal India executives say NTPC and some power producers have disputed the company’s demand for incentives for supplying coal beyond annual quota and revised logistics rates since 2017. NTPC executives say the company had not withheld any legitimate payment.
EESL, a joint venture of public sector undertakings under the power ministry, has completed 10 years of scaling up energy efficiency programmes in India and globally.
Gas pipelines are planned to take the fuel to the east and northeast regions as well as to consumers in the south as part of the government push to raise the share of natural gas in India's energy basket to 15% by 2030 from the current 6.2%, said GAIL India Ltd's new chairman Manoj Jain.
Chinese refiners have slashed output by at least 1.5 million barrels a day in February after the virus outbreak hit China's fuel demand and its crude and fuel inventories swelled up.
PNGRB had granted the award for piped gas distribution network in Puducherry to AG & P LNG, in Chennai and Tiruvallur districts to Torrent Gas Private Limited and to SKN Haryana in Kanchipuram district in 2018. Adani Gas had contended that the successful bids were beyond the unreasonably high limit adopted by the Board.
The Essar Group has indicated that it is "poised to embark on a new phase of growth while driving growth in its existing portfolio." Essar did not specify what the new growth areas could be, but said it is "armed with a substantially lighter balance sheet" after it took "a conscious call of reducing its debt in response to evolving domestic and evolving economic scenario."
Sources said the reduction would impact revenues of India's biggest producer ONGC as well as Reliance Industries and its partner BP plc which plan to start gas production from their 'second-wave' of discoveries in eastern offshore KG-D6 block from mid-2020. The cut in price will lower the earnings of producers like ONGC but will also lead to a reduction in the price of CNG, which uses natural gas as input.
Demand for electricity stood at 1,05,289 megawatt (mw) in January against 1,01,570 mw in December 2019. It was also 3.5% higher than the 1,01,713 mw in January 2019, data available with the Central Electricity Authority showed.
The Cauvery Delta region is considered to be the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu. It also accounts for a large part of the production of foodgrain and other agricultural produce in the state. Earlier this month, Palaniswami had promised a special law to put into effect his announcement that the Cauvery Delta region will be converted into a Protected Special Agricultural Zone.
The downstream regulator has approved French energy giant Total’s deal to buy stake in Adani Gas lifting its shares 13%. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board had objected to restructuring of Adani Gas and the agreed sale of stake in it to Total because there are restrictions on such deals in the first five years after a licence is granted.
The downstream regulator is planning to waive a key condition for city gas distributors — of signing natural gas purchase pacts within 180 days from the award of licence — in response to companies’ reluctance to go for such deals amid a global supply glut.
Thermal power units with electricity sale agreements but no fuel supply pact to support them will have to offer a minimum discount of 7 paise per unit on existing tariffs to get Coal India's notified prices for 25 years, the government has recently decided.
State-run Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) will not go to the telecom tribunal against the telecom department's (DoT) demand notice for Rs 22,168 crore as licence fee dues, as it feels the Supreme Court's latest order and hearing seem to exempt it, a senior government official said.
India adopted Euro-III equivalent (or Bharat Stage-III) fuel with a sulphur content of 350 ppm in 2010 and then took seven years to move to BS-IV that had a sulphur content of 50 ppm. From BS-IV to BS-VI it took just three years. With this, India will join the select league of nations using petrol and diesel containing just 10 parts per million of sulphur.
State-run BPCL’s management does not expect major layoffs after the proposed privatisation of the oil marketing company as it has been working on having a lean structure for almost a decade now, a top executive of the company told ET.
Andhra Pradesh’s main power distribution company has sought more time to clear outstanding dues of Rs. 599 crore it owes to renewable energy developers.
The government will set up a Renewable Energy Promotion and Facilitation Board to help minimise risks for developers in the sector that has seen a waning of investment interest mainly because of adverse policies of state governments.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has referred the ongoing dispute between General Electric and Triveni Turbines over their joint venture back to the Bengaluru bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
Nearly three quarters of India’s gas-fired capacity is idle, as they fail to compete with cheaper power from coal plants. Supply of regulated domestic gas, which declined almost 4% from a year earlier to $3.23 per million British thermal units for the half year ending March, is scarce and generators find other sources of the fuel too expensive.
“It was also proposed that Coal India could generate 5 GW of solar power by 2023-24 and could diversify into coal gasification with a target of 50 Million Tonnes by 2030 enabling a sustainable energy mix for the country. All these ideas will be deliberated, studied and examined for their feasibility in detail and based on that, they shall be implemented,” an official statement said.
Great Eastern Energy Corporation (GEECL) and Essar Oil and Gas Exploration and Production (EOGPL) have been keen on exploiting shale resources in their respective CBM fields in West Bengal after a policy change in 2018. The industry wants state’s additional 10% revenue share to be waived.
The government will set up ultramega renewable energy parks of a total of 50 gigawatt (GW) in Gujarat and Rajasthan in what could be the world’s largest renewable energy investment programme, people familiar with the development said.