Increased vehicle sales and demand for consumer goods boost sales of diesel, which is the primary fuel for long-haul trucks needed to transport raw materials to factories and transfer finished products to warehouses and retail stores. Diesel, which comprises about 40% of India’s oil demand, has fully recovered from the Covid-led disruption. Its sales in April were 9.1% higher than in the same month of 2019.
This is the second revision of prices of commercial LPG cylinders. Petroleum and oil marketing companies had reduced the price of Commercial LPG cylinders by Rs 91.50 per unit earlier this month on April 1.
Nayara, the largest private fuel retailer that owns over 7 per cent of India's 86,855 petrol pumps, started pricing petrol and diesel at market rates sometime in March and RBML's 1,555 petrol pumps are selling diesel at par from this month.
The Assam government-owned AGCL will have 51 per cent stake, while the OIL will hold the remaining 49 per cent share in the joint venture company. It will build local natural gas grids and provide piped natural gas to domestic and commercial establishments in Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Darrang, Udalguri, Sonitpur and Biswanath Chariali in Assam, and a few districts of Tripura.
The JV company, with Government of Assam-owned AGCL having 51% of share equity and OIL retaining the remaining 49%, shall, apart from building local natural gas grids and providing piped natural gas to domestic and commercial establishments in Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Darrang, Udalguri, Sonitpur and Biswanath Chariali and a few districts of Tripura for the time being, shall also set-up numerous compressed natural gas (CNG) stations.
ONGC, Oil India, Indian Oil, and BPCL have participating interests in multiple oil and gas projects in Russia from which they earn dividends periodically. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war in February last year, which triggered Western sanctions on Russia, repatriating dividends has become difficult.
Dividends of as much as $400 million to four Indian companies for their stakes in Russian oil assets are stuck due to problems in payments triggered by Western sanctions over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, a government source said. The affected companies are ONGC Videsh Ltd, Oil India, Bharat Petroleum Corp, and Indian Oil Corp, the source said.
India is on track to become Europe’s largest supplier of refined fuels this month while simultaneously buying record amounts of Russian crude, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from analytics firm Kpler. Europe’s refined fuel imports from India are set to surge above 360,000 barrels a day, edging just ahead of those of Saudi Arabia, Kpler’s data show.
Last month, MGL acquired 100 percent shareholding of Unison Enviro Pvt. Ltd. (UEPL) for ₹531 crore to enter new geographical areas for pursuing inorganic growth opportunities. MGL said Unison Enviro would become a subsidiary and would be rebranded.
The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC), which has been directed to conduct a special audit of power subsidy provided between 2016 and 2022, will ask the government for terms of reference and legal position of the exercise, official sources said on Tuesday.
The rising concern about climate change has prompted some capital providers in the developed world, including banks as well as debt and equity funds, to avoid funding projects with high emissions. In India, fossil fuel projects or oil companies haven't yet faced much funding constraints, but the fear has been growing.
ONGC's new CEO has asked executives aged above 50 years to sacrifice their interests to let young leaders emerge, a call that hasn't gone down well with many of those employees, who comprise 35-40% of the company's workforce and occupy most of its key positions today.
The total length of the pipeline is 4,080 metre. It connects Jorhat and Majuli and will form a part of the 1,656 km long North East Gas Grid connecting the major cities and demand centres of North East India with the National Gas Grid. The 1656 km long natural gas pipeline is constructed at a project cost of Rs 9,265 crore.
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is expected to commission the MJ field in eastern offshore Krishna Godavari D6 block this quarter. The field is the third and final set of discoveries; developing the site will contribute to 30% of India's gas production, which could result in an upside in RIL's gas production. The company has already done a fourth e-auction for the KGD6 block's gas sale, with the price bid at Japan Korea Marker (JKM) plus 75 cents.
Hydropower firms may face rising costs after the introduction of a new water usage fee in March in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Firms including Greenko, Statkraft, JSW and GMR will be affected and will need to pay for the water that flows through their plants to generate electricity.
The projects, aimed at development of distribution infrastructure at electric supply circle, will impact lives of lakhs of people in the regions, and come with a 30-month timeline, a company statement said. These are turnkey projects awarded under the revamped reforms-based and results-linked, distribution sector scheme.
The Union Minister also said that the production of CBG would have multiple benefits viz., reduction of natural gas imports, reduction of GHG emission, reduction in the burning of agriculture residues, providing remunerative income to farmers, employment generation, and effective waste management.
AG&P is close to picking up a 70% stake in H-Energy and one of its subsidiaries, while Darshan Hiranandani will hold on to the remaining 30%. "AG&P plans to buy 70% in H-Energy and one of its subsidiaries as it is looking to expand its LNG and CNG operations in India," said the first source cited.
The stance underscores the pressing need in the country of 1.4 billion people to curb inflation and spur growth amid a surprise output cut by OPEC+ and western sanctions to rein in Russia’s oil revenue following the invasion of Ukraine. India, along with China, has emerged as one of the key buyers of Russian crude. It is now India’s top supplier, above Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
ONGC resumed its first deepsea project in India's KG basin after a month of delay caused by Armada Sterling V's fuel-extracting mechanism getting entangled with fishing nets. ONGC sought help from the Indian Navy, whose divers successfully cleared the nets from the vessel. As a result, the operations, which had stopped since the incident happened, were restored, leading to "considerable savings to the exchequer." The first oil from the KG-D5 block is expected to be produced in May 2023.
Brazilian gas operators Eneva S A and PetroRio have been approved to buy two and one oil basins, respectively, from oil and gas exploration firm VoVL, formerly known as Videocon Oil Ventures Ltd, after 90% of the latter's lenders voted in favour. However, VoVL's joint venture partner Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd will have 30 days to match the bids. BPCL owns a 61% participating interest in VoVL after the latter failed in making an agreed payment, leading to the former taking up the cash call. After nearly four years of insolvency proceedings, lenders may recover almost 8% of the claims.
New Delhi-based NTPC will likely award construction orders for about 4.5 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity during the fiscal year that began this month, according to an official aware of the plans, who asked not be named before a final decision is made. The projects will be built across three sites where the utility already runs power plants.
Dipam, which is in charge of state invested assets, is not comfortable with PFC and REC acquiring the power project through a joint venture (JV) company they created last year specifically for the purpose of acquiring stressed power plants.
In 2021-22, five states -- Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan and Telangana -- are in the Front Runner category while four states -- Assam, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Punjab -- are in the Achiever category, according to an official release from Ministry of Power. Further, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Chandigarh are the top-performing states in their respective state groups. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh showed the most improvement since the last index.
Tata Power Delhi Distribution has signed an agreement worth INR150 crore ($18.2m) for funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to support its grid enhancement plan. The funds will be used to install grid infrastructure improvements and a pilot battery energy storage system (BESS). The installation of a BESS will enable the more efficient use of renewable energy sources, and help create a more disaster-resilient power supply. ADB is providing a $2m grant to partially finance the installation and integration of the pilot BESS.
NTPC management lauded the role of the power ministry, coal ministry and state governments, among others, for their support to its coal mining in enhancing production and dispatching 21.9 million tonnes of good quality coal to NTPC power plants with a phenomenal year-on-year growth of 48 per cent over coal dispatch of 14.8 million tonnes in the previous fiscal.
GAIL Gas Ltd, on Sunday, announced a reduction in the prices of CNG and piped cooking gas by up to Rs 7, following a reduction in input gas price. The company has slashed the price of the gas that households received through piped natural gas, or PNG, by Rs 7 per standard cubic metre in Bengaluru and Dakshin Kannada and by Rs 6 per scm in other cities where the company operates.
India's crude oil imports from Russia have doubled over the past year, reaching a new high of 1.64 million barrels per day in March. The increase has made Russia the single largest supplier of crude oil to India, accounting for over a third of all oil that India imports. However, purchases from Russia appear to have plateaued as growth has slowed, according to energy cargo tracker Vortexa. While Russia will continue to remain a key supplier, refiners still have room to diversify crude oil sources, said Vortexa's head of Asia-Pacific analysis.
Torrent Gas has followed the lead of Adani Total Gas and Mahanagar Gas by reducing compressed natural gas (CNG) prices by up to ₹8.25 ($0.11) per kg and piped natural gas (PNG) prices by up to ₹5 per standard cubic metre (scm). The revised prices mean consumers can save up to 47% versus petrol and up to 28% versus liquefied petroleum gas, Torrent said.
The rates of gas piped to household kitchens, called piped natural gas (PNG), has been cut to Rs 48.59 per standard cubic metre in Delhi from Rs 53.59 per scm, according to IGL.
The revised prices came into effect on April 8 at midnight. The price revision came after the Union Cabinet on Thursday approved new guidelines on gas pricing, which paves the way for natural gas prices in India to be linked to global crude prices.
APJL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Power, will supply the power under a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for corresponding net capacity of 748 MW from unit 1 to the Bangladesh Power Development Board.
ONGC Tripura Asset has achieved record gas production of 1,675 Million Standard Cubic Metres (MMSCM) in 2022-23 FY, breaking its previous records in the region. Despite the inherent challenges of the business, the Asset managed to achieve the feat with the commissioning of aerial hydrocarbon survey and hi-tech drilling rigs. ONGC Tripura Asset has registered a 3% production growth in the last six years despite the fields' remoteness and high decline rates.
Asia's imports of crude oil stayed at relatively robust levels in March, as strong inflows to the top-importing region's heavyweights China and India offset weaker demand among some others buyers.
Access to cheap Russian crude has boosted output and profits at Indian refineries, enabling them to export refined products competitively to Europe and take bigger market share.
Power generation rose 11.5% to 1,591.11 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or units, in the fiscal year ended March 2023, an analysis of daily load data from regulator Grid-India showed, the sharpest increase since year ended March 1990. Output from plants running on fossil fuels rose 11.2%, the quickest growth in over three decades, thanks to a 12.4% surge in electricity production from coal, the analysis showed, offsetting a 28.7% decline in generation from cleaner gas-fired plants as a global spike in LNG prices deterred usage.
In terms of connections, it increased from 25.4 lakh to 103.93 lakh, an increase of over four times. "City Gas Distribution Network takes massive strides to offer convenient and affordable fuel. From just 66 districts in 2014, CGD network covers 630 districts in 2023; taking the number of domestic PNG connections from merely 25.40 lakhs in 2014 to a whopping 103.93 lakhs now," Puri tweeted.
In the last revision the windfall levy was Rs 3,500 per tonne. It also marginally increased export duty on diesel to Rs one per litre from Rs 0.50 while keeping both petrol and Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) exempted from the export levy.
Russia supplied a record 1.64 million barrels per day (mbd) of crude to Indian refiners in March, higher than 1.58 mbd in February, Vortexa estimates. This was the slowest pace of growth in the past four months, with Russian oil's share in Indian imports shrinking marginally from 34.5% in February to 34% in March.
The Ukraine war and the Western sanctions disrupted production last year at Russia's Sakhalin 1 field, in which OVL has a 20% stake. Production at Sakhalin 1 has returned to near normal, said Gupta. Sakhalin trouble contributed to OVL's production decline in 2022-23 to 10 mmtoe from 12.2 mmtoe in the previous year.
"In FY'23, billing was Rs 24,432 crore, which is higher by around Rs 5,461 crore over the previous year. Apart from higher generation, regulatory approvals of tariff revision and the Union government's Late Payment Surcharge (LPS) scheme also boosted revenue collection," DVC Chairman Ram Naresh Singh told PTI.
Diesel, the most consumed fuel in the country, saw demand rise by 2.1 per cent to 6.81 million tonne during March when compared with 6.67 million tonne sales in the same period a year back.
Last contraction in power consumption was recorded in August in 2020, when it declined by over two per cent to 109.21 BU, compared to 111.52 BU in August 2019. Power consumption had slumped in 2020 due to the impact of lockdown restrictions imposed to curb the spread of deadly coronavirus.
The government had imposed the curbs on petrol and diesel exports through Friday's end of the financial year.
The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has approved a 10% electricity tariff increase for domestic consumers from 1 April, followed by an additional 17% hike from 1 April 2024. Four electricity distribution companies - Tata Power, Adani Electricity, Maharastra State Electricity Distribution, and Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply - will increase charges. Each company's tariff rates will increase by varying percentages between FY 2023-24 and 2024-25. Residential electricity rates will increase by up to 21% following the increases. Industrial electricity rates will increase by up to 17% in the same period.