43 more airports to see regular flights: Jayant Sinha
43 more airports in India will see regular flights, says Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha. He was addressing a press conference after regional air services bidding process started. Soon 118 airports will see regular flights from 75 at present. “Hope to have first regional flight in February as several airports like Jaisalmer and Coochbihar are ‘ready to go’,” the Minister said. He termed the Government’s move to make regional flying cheaper in regional areas as a ‘game changer’. 16 airports in South India, 32 in Western India, 21 in north, 12 in east and 11 in north-eastern regions are proposed to be connected under the regional air connectivity scheme. The bids for routes will be decided by February 3. Joffrey Lupul Womens Jersey
Confident of achieving 40 km/day target by next yr:Nitin Gadkari
Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari is very optimistic of his ministry contributing 2-3 percent to the GDP of the country and create 5 crore jobs by end of his 5-year term. The ministry will be a big contributor to the double-digit growth of the country, he said. In the forthcoming Union Budget on February 1, he expects the Finance Minister to give high priority to infrastructure investments. “Budget is an economic vision for the whole country,” he said. He is also confident of his party (BJP) doing well in the elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa and other states. Speaking to CNBC-TV18 from the sidelines of WEF at Davos, he said there has been a lot of investor interest in road and infrastructure sectors. Foreign investors have a good opinion of the Indian economy, especialy investment-friendly policies, he said. The Canadian Pension Fund has promised huge investments. He is also confident of his ministry achieving the target of 40 km of road per day by next year. By end of December, last year they had reached 30 km per day, said Gadkari. He is also looking at 12 more express highways. The government will now also focus on the agriculture sector. Phil Esposito Authentic Jersey
Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust investing Rs 3K cr on road connectivity project: Government
Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) is investing Rs 3,000 crore for improving road connectivity and also looking to finalise Rs 2,000 crore-dredging project, a top government official said today. Shipping Secretary Rajive Kumar said the port is “investing Rs 3,000 crore for a road connectivity project. They are just in the process of finalising Rs 2,000 crore (for) dredging project and they are investing about Rs 1,000 crore within the port for improving both the rail and road network.” He also said that operationalisation of the fourth terminal will double the capacity of JNPT “that they intend to start phase I in early 2018”. Further, the official informed, the government is working to reduce cost of logistics for traders. “We are looking at GST. We are also looking at roads having electronic toll collection so that the trucks need not stop everywhere,” Kumar added. However, he said, the centre would have to negotiate with state governments to ensure that reduction of other local barriers for smooth movement of cargoes. He was speaking at a function on ‘Stimulating India’s EXIM Growth – reducing the indirect costs of trade’. Speaking at the event, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) A K Bhalla said that the country’s exports are showing growth in the last three months. He said under the WTO’s trade facilitation agreement in goods, India is bound to bring lot of reforms. Under the foreign trade policy (FTP), the commerce ministry extends lot of incentives to facilitate exports under certain schemes, Bhalla said, adding “some of these schmoes are not going to be WTO compliant in the years to come where we crossed a certain threshold of GDP”. There is a need to reduce cost of logistics and its impact on trade, he said. Brenden Dillon Jersey
Nitin Gadkari promises to make India’s own Davos
As over 3,000 leaders from across the world huddle for their annual talk-fest in this snow-capped Swiss ski resort town in sub-zero temperatures, senior union minister Nitin Gadkari has got a full city to take back home literally — he wants to create India’s own Davos in hilly terrains of Himalayas. Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport, Ports and Shipping, said it is very much possible to create a new city like Davos back in India where hotels, shops and conference centres would be set up, while taking care of the environment and other issues, and which can host events like World Economic Forum while giving a big boost to tourism, jobs and overall economy. “After I came here, a thought has come to my mind. I’m yet to start any work on it. We are working on a 1,000-km new roads for Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri of Rs 12,000 crore which would be all-season roads. That will be a historical thing with tunnels etc. “Along with that, there is Pittoragarh where we are building a road for Mansarovar and we are taking Australian machines through MIG-17 and some work is already done, about 50 per cent. That place has got temperature of about minus 5-6 degrees. “After coming to Davos, I felt why can’t we develop a township like this in that area, where people will come in sub-zero temperatures and which will have hotels and tourism facilities and will even go to Mansarovar,” Gadkari told PTI in an interview here at Make in India lounge on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. The minister, known for his out-of-the box innovative ideas, said it is very much possible to create a Davos-like city there in India, which is rich in all kinds of assets. “We are capable of creating Taj Mahal even in a desert. It needs a vision, fast track decision making process, transparency and corruption free system. Another important thing is the commitment to the society and the country, and my country also needs something like this,” he said. Giving an example, Gadkari said he was travelling from San Francisco through Pacific Ocean and an idea struck him to build a new road for Mumbai to Goa which will run alongside the sea and the work has begun on that idea. “Similarly, we will work on Yamuna riverfront by building a wall for a highway from Delhi to Yamunanagar. A study is on for this project which will make travel easier from Delhi to Uttarakhand and Himachal, bringing down the traffic on existing roads,” he said. Gadkari, who is attending several sessions at WEF and is also holding bilateral meetings with corporates and other leaders from across the world here, said he has got an idea after coming here and it is very much possible to create a beautiful city in India itself in sub-zero degree temperatures. Observing that at times an extreme position is taken on environment like issues, he said it is necessary to protect environment but development is also necessary, so appropriate measures can be taken to ensure that there is no ecological disturbances. “We need an integrated approach, since an eccentric approach on either side is not good for the country. For a developing country like India, the development should be done by taking care of both sides,” he said. There can be opposition even for a small construction in Himalayas and therefore an integrated approach would be required by the environment ministry, environmentalists, tourism ministry, road ministry and all concerned stakeholders, he added. “There are so many hotels that have been built here in Davos. They may also have cut trees somewhere. What can be done is that for every tree you have to plant ten new ones. Then, what we will do is we will not cut the trees, but will move them to a new place and will ensure that ten new trees are planted for every single one,” he said. “We are a rich country with a poor population. We can become top most tourist attraction in the world,” he said, while adding that there is huge scope for Andaman Nicobar and islands. Gadkari said he has already begun work on running sea planes in the country, while new buses are being brought in that will run on water as well. “We need to think out of box and innovate. We can solve many of our problems with new technologies and help change the country. What is required is the appropriate vision, commitment and a leadership that has willingness to do it. “I am learning after coming here and seeing new ideas. I am studying the successful practices here and I want to know what all can be done back in India,” he said, while complementing Professor Klaus Schwab for making Davos and WEF such a big thing on the world map single-handedly. “A city like Davos in India would give a big boost to tourism, development, jobs and overall economy, while the number of people travelling to holy places in that region will also increase manifold and also increase the faith in our own culture. Malik Jefferson Womens Jersey
Report : Indian airports, airlines to ramp up IT spending in 2017
Airlines and airports in India are expected to rapidly ramp up spending on new technology over the next three years to keep up with surging growth that is expected to position India as the world’s third largest aviation market, ahead of the UK, in 10 years’ time. The spending predictions come from SITA, a specialist in air transport IT and communications. According to SITA’s 2016 India IT Trends Benchmark study, released at the India ICT Aviation Forum 2016 in December, all airlines in India expect to see IT budgets increase in 2017 compared to 2016. This contrasts markedly with global airline confidence on future IT budgets, with just over half expecting an increase while around a third anticipate no change in 2017. The remainder globally are braced for lower budgets. Airports in India are similarly positive about IT spending, SITA says, with 80% of airports expecting an IT budget increase in 2017 over 2016. This compares to 58% of airports globally who expect an increase next year. Foremost among the priorities of Indian airports, according to SITA, is handling the huge passenger volumes efficiently. That means self-service technologies are in high demand and the majority of Indian airports (83%) plan major passenger self-service programmes in the next three years. One area of significant growth is self-service bag-drop, with more than 80% of airports expecting to put in place assisted self bag-drop systems. Benson Mayowa Womens Jersey
Indian aviation is growing but it’s straining airports: Why 1 in 4 flights are getting delayed
The fastest growing aviation market across the globe continues its struggle infrastructure and performance metrics of its airlines. Data released by DGCA show not a single airline managed to operate one in four flights on time from four of India’s busiest airports last month. This, when India’s airlines carried close to 10 crore passengers in 2016, with 12 consecutive months of above 20 percent growth. The delays have been increasing as traffic grows. SpiceJet managed average on-time performance of just 70 percent across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad airports in December and this was the best on-time performance by any airline during December. As expected, Air India fared the worst with at least four in 10 flights getting delayed. And others fared only marginally better, getting almost every third flight from these airports delayed. Traditionally, flying in and out of Mumbai has been the biggest bane for any airline due to massive congestion at this airport. Well, in December, Air India did not get even half its flights on time at this airport and even market leader IndiGo barely managed to get 50 percent of its flight on time here. So when the government goes ga-ga over impressive traffic growth in the skies and talks of India becoming a global leader in aviation, it must consider developing a robust airport infrastructure too to keep pace with this kind of growth. India’s aviation traffic almost doubled in the last six years. Airport capacity hasn’t. Infrastructure has failed to keep pace with traffic growth fueled by rising incomes and affordable fares. Sonny Milano Womens Jersey
11 bidders, 45 initial proposals for regional air services
Eleven bidders have submitted 45 initial proposals covering more than 200 Regional Connectivity Scheme routes under the UDAN scheme which seeks to encourage common people to fly. “The initial proposals cover 65 airports, of which 52 are unserved and 13 underserved,” the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement. January 16 was the last date for submission of initial proposals for operations under the UDAN scheme. Classification An airport at which there are no more than seven scheduled commercial flight departures a week is termed as an underserved airport while an ‘unserved airport’ is one at which there have been no scheduled commercial flights during the last two flight schedules approved by the DGCA. Globally, airlines follow a summer and winter schedule, with the summer schedule running from the last Sunday in March to the last Saturday in October. The winter schedule runs from the last Sunday in October till the last Saturday in March of the following year. The Ministry’s attempts to get the common man to fly at low rates is unlikely to take off before March or later this year as the last date of submission for counter bids for the initial proposals is February 1. Officials indicated that apart from operators importing aircraft, it has to be ensured that the airports are operational, and the flights have to be marketed. List of airports All this is likely to take a few months. An operator is allowed 90 days from the time the route is awarded to launch flights. In October last year, while announcing the Regional Connectivity Scheme, the Ministry of Civil Aviation in its RCS document gave a tentative list of 16 underserved airports/airstrips in the country, which included Aggati in Lakshadweep Islands, Car Nicobar (Andaman Islands) and Bhavnagar (Gujarat). It also gave a tentative list of 398 airports/airstrips that were unserved. They included 13 in Karnataka, 12 in Tamil Nadu, including Vellore, Tambaram, Salem, Hosur and Chettinad, and one in Kerala (Chillari). The routes or networks will be awarded to the bidders who quote the lowest requirement for the viability gap funding (VGF) against such routes. To be able to seek this subsidy, an operator has to price its tickets for a one-hour journey of approximately 500 km on a fixed wing aircraft or for a 30-minute journey on a helicopter capped at ?2,500. Ty Rattie Womens Jersey
Higher coal prices, clean energy cess wiped out UDAY gains: Analysts
Power procurement costs have risen as higher coal prices and clean energy cess have wiped out gains from government moves to reduce costs under the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme, analysts said. “As part of the government’s initiative, availability of coal and utilisation rates have improved, resulting in savings for power firms along with rejigging of sources of coal that has also resulted in reduction in transport costs for coal,” Sudip Sural, senior director, CRISILBSE -0.05 % Ratings said. “On the other hand extraneous factors outside the control of ministry of power, like increases in clean energy cess, domestic and international coal prices rise and hiked railways tariffs have outweighed generation cost reducing measures,” he said. Coal India BSE 0.11 % raised production and sales by 8 per cent, railways improved rakes availability helping some power plants become flush with stocks. However, this increased availability was not enough for all thermal power plants, industry executives said. “In fact, plants that have been put up after 2009 have been running at less than 50 per cent capacity utilisation levels,” he said. At lower capacity utilisation cost of generation tends to rise,” said a senior power sector official. If cost of procurement rises, state utilities will have to take hike in power tariffs and in 2016 it was estimated that for every unit of power sold to utilities a fraction of the cost does not get collected. According to UDAY this gap needs to be zero by 2019. Nevertheless, fresh power generation project to the tune of 24,000 MW are at risk. Of these 13,000 MW of projects according to CRISIL are facing commissioning risks because of weak sponsors. These projects have faced significant delays leading to cost overrun. In fact some 10,500 MW projects have not seen 50 per cent progress. The situation has exacerbated as some of these projects do not have power purchase agreements. Tevin Coleman Authentic Jersey
Argentina says 89 companies have offered to build electricity generation projects
Argentina’s energy ministry said on Tuesday that 89 companies are interested in building 196 projects to generate electricity as the government tries to attract private investment to lift the country out of recession. If built, the projects would generate 34,834 megawatts of energy, the ministry said. A government source said they would bring in $30 billion in investment, although not all projects would be awarded. The project presentations will be analyzed and an auction will be held in the first half of the year before contracts are signed, the statement said. Center-right President Mauricio Macri is trying to attract private investment to build roads, trains, transmission lines and other infrastructure to boost Argentina’s economy. The energy ministry statement said the energy projects would reduce the cost of energy on the local market. In October the government said it expected investment of $1.8 billion from 17 renewable energy projects it awarded in an auction. It had received 123 bids in September, as companies looked to build wind, solar and biogas projects. Nick Holden Jersey
Big Oil back on the acquisition trail as outlook brightens
The world’s top oil companies are back in acquisition mode, targeting smaller exploration and development firms to boost oil and gas reserves rather than the mega-mergers that followed previous slumps in crude prices. Since late November, major oil companies have announced 11 deals worth more than $500 million each with a combined value of $31 billion, the clearest sign yet that oil executives are more confident a recovery is underway. When crude prices collapsed in the second half of 2014, large oil firms slashed spending on exploration and production and offloaded assets to reduce debt so they could cope with lower revenue from oil and gas sales. But with crude reservoirs declining at a rate of 10 percent a year in some cases, major oil companies are now looking to snap up assets to start growing again and there are plenty of smaller firms burdened with debt looking to sell. “You’re seeing the majors sharpening their pencils after a long while and actually flipping around from disposals to acquisitions,” said Tony Durrant, chief executive of British energy firm Premier Oil , which is looking to sell several stakes in its North Sea operations. Total acquisitions of oil and gas fields, known as upstream assets, tripled to $31 billion in December from a month earlier, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut output for the first time in eight years, according to data from consultancy Energy Market Square. Deals in the last month of 2016 alone accounted for nearly a quarter of total activity during the year. MAJOR DEALS BP announced a string of investments in the last two months of 2016, including a $1 billion partnership with Dallas-based Kosmos Energy in Mauritania and Senegal in West Africa, as well as acquisitions in Abu Dhabi and Azerbaijan. The British company also spent $375 million on a 10 percent stake in Eni’s giant Zohr gas field in Egypt while Russian oil giant Rosneft bought 30 percent stake of the same field for $1.575 billion. France’s Total and Norway’s Statoil bought into Brazil’s lucrative sub-salt deepwater oil fields while ExxonMobil Corp bought assets in Papua New Guinea to meet growing Asian demand for liquefied natural gas. The trend continued in January with Total boosting its stake in Uganda’s Lake Albert oil project by snapping up most of Tullow Oil’s stake for $900 million. ExxonMobile and Noble Energy also struck deals worth nearly $10 billion combined for a larger slice of the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. oil field. While deal making outside the United States almost ground to a halt at the start of 2016, acquisitions in North American shale basins have continued at a steady pace. In the Permian Basin, for example, the time it takes to produce oil and gas after an initial investment is far quicker and cheaper than developing conventional fields over three to five years. ONLY CHOICE More deals are likely this year as the large overhang of crude oil in the world that has weighed on the market since 2014 continues to clear and oil prices rise. “When you can cut capex (capital spending), two-and-a-half to three years later you see production decline and reserves depleting and you have one choice only and that is going after high quality resource,” said Sachin Oza, co-manager with Stephen Williams of the Guinness Global Oil and Gas Exploration Trust. “If you’ve not spent any time filling your hopper with these opportunities that take five years to build up, there is only one choice: you have to buy them,” said Oza. The Guinness Trust is a fund that invests in firms in the early stages of exploration or development of energy resources which it believes will attract investment from oil majors. Investors reckon large firms will focus on underdeveloped basins in east and west Africa, Romania and Albania, as well as nascent Latin American reserves in places such as Colombia, all areas where the growth potential is seen as greater than in established regions such as North America and the North Sea. While slides in oil prices typically unleash a wave of takeovers, companies emerging from the current downturn are generally shunning outright acquisitions and instead looking at specific deals for specific fields. After a prolonged period of low oil prices in the late 1990s Exxon merged with Mobil, Total merged with Elf Aquitaine and Petrofina, Chevron bought Texaco, BP snapped up Amoco and ARCO and Conoco and Philips merged. This time round, the only stand-out acquisition has been Royal Dutch Shell’s takeover of BG, which was announced in April 2015 and completed in February a year later for $53 billion. BUYER’S MARKET As large oil firms are wary of increasing their debt burden at this point, investors say corporate acquisitions are likely to be limited in numbers and scope but oil field assets are very much in the crosshairs. Oil majors are opting for joint ventures to develop specific fields in complex deals, such as share swaps or deferred payments, to lower their risk and limit the amount they need to spend upfront following two years of budget cuts. “The international (ex-U.S.) asset market is a buyer’s market, as sellers continue in balance sheet preservation mode,” said Charles Whall, energy portfolio manager at Investec Asset Management. “European majors, which already have large dividend commitments, are unwilling to use equity for assets without immediate cash flow … Most of these asset deals are structured to minimise the debt impact in the near term,” he said. Such deals also mean the sellers can retain a stake in the assets as their value rises with oil prices, said Oza and Williams at the Guinness Trust. Analysts say for much of 2015 and 2016 there was subdued activity because buyers and sellers were too far apart on price. Buyers hunting for bargain-basement deals were frustrated by sellers holding out for better terms but as oil prices have started to stabilise there has been more convergence. According to Martijn Rats,