Air India new fleet plan on hold after privatisation proposal
Air India’s plans to expand its fleet with new aircraft seems to have hit an air pocket following the NITI Aayog’s proposal to the PMO its total privatisation which made the national carrier’s future course uncertain. Decisions earlier approved by the airline’s board of directors regarding acquisition of newer versions of aircraft are currently “on hold” and tenders for procurement of new planes have been deferred till there is a clarity, an airline source said. Air India’s board of directors had in March approved a proposal to induct seven Boeing 787-9 aircraft in its fleet with the aim to improve connectivity to Canada, the USA and Australia. The airline was planning to float tenders for procuring these aircraft on lease this month, which has now been deferred. “The decision (of floating tenders) is on hold until there is a clarity on the airline’s future,” a top Air India official said. Similarly, plans to procure 10 more ATR aircraft by Air India’s regional arm, Alliance Air, which has been awarded several routes under the Centre’s regional connectivity scheme UDAN, have been put on the back-burner, the official said. Alliance Air currently has 10 ATRs in its fleet and has recently placed orders for leasing of 10 more such planes by the end of this fiscal. As part of its fleet expansion plans, Alliance Air has proposed to take its ATR fleet strength to 30 over a period of time. On the other hand, Air India is also leasing 22 Airbus A320 Neos, of which four have already joined the fleet. According to the source, the airline had planned to issue bids for seven more such planes but now there is uncertainty over these tenders as well. However, as of now, there is no change in plan to take the deliveries of the remaining four of the total 27 Dreamliners (Boeing 787-800s) that the airline had ordered in 2006, which are to be inducted in its fleet between July and October, the source said. The state-owned carrier has a total 103 planes of which 42 are wide-bodied Boeing 777s, 747s, 787s and 61 narrow- bodied Airbus 319s, 320s and 321s. Its low-cost subsidiary Air India Express has 23 Boeing 737s. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has favoured privatisation of Air India and the civil aviation ministry is looking at all options to make the airline strong and viable. According to Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, a cabinet note in this regard is likely to be prepared shortly. Air India has piled up over Rs 50,000 crore debt mainly because of high maintenance cost and lease rent. It made an operational profit of Rs 105 crore in the financial year ending March 2016, the first time since the merger of then Air India and Indian Airlines into one entity Air India Limited in 2007. Kyle Beckerman Authentic Jersey
U.S. solar market to fall 16 percent in 2017, report says
U.S. solar installations will fall 16 percent this year, according to a forecast released on Thursday, as utilities slow procurement of projects to meet state mandates and residential systems become harder to sell. Following a banner 2016 driven by expectations that a key federal tax credit would expire at the end of that year, the utility-scale market is expected to drop to 8 gigawatts this year from more than 10 GW last year, according to a report by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association. The utility market, which accounts for about half of all solar systems, is expected to resume growth in 2019 as utilities seek to procure projects before the 30 percent federal tax credit for solar projects begins to step down in 2020. Prices on solar systems dropped further during the first quarter, falling below $1 per watt for the first time, the report said. Residential solar is expected to rise 2 percent for the year, well below the 19 percent growth it logged last year. California is experiencing a major decline in adoption of home installations that contributed to a 17 percent first-quarter drop in the nationwide market. The state accounted for 35 percent of the total U.S. market during the quarter, its lowest share since GTM began tracking the market in 2010. Large national installers that make up close to half the market, like Tesla Inc’s SolarCity and Vivint Solar Inc , have slowed growth to focus on profitability. Residential markets in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland also fell during the quarter as installers found it was taking longer to win over customers beyond the early adopters. The market for non-residential solar, which includes commercial and community solar installations, rose 30 percent in the first quarter thanks in part to a robust community solar market in Minnesota and growth in New York. GTM would revise its forecasts downward, it warned, if a petition by bankrupt solar manufacturer Suniva to implement a 78-cents-per-watt floor on solar module pricing is approved by the U.S. International Trade Commission. U.S. module prices were around 40 cents a watt in the first quarter. Suniva filed a rare Section 201 petition with the ITC last month, seeking new duties on imported solar products to combat a global oversupply of panels that has depressed prices. If successful, the petition would put solar system costs at 2015 levels, according to GTM. New England Patriots Authentic Jersey
Iran says Qatar crisis not to impact work at joint South Pars gas field
Iran’s Oil Minister said on Wednesday Qatar’s regional isolation will not affect Tehran’s plans to develop its vast South Pars offshore gas field that it shares with the Arab Gulf country, state TV reported. “We will continue our work as planned. There is no problem,”Bijan Zanganeh said. In a heightened crisis between Arab states, Saudi Arabia,Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar on Monday and closed their airspace to commercial flights, saying it was funding militant groups. Mitchell Schwartz Womens Jersey
Russia-China talks over new gas routes stalled – sources
Talks over new routes for gas supplies to China from Russia have stalled while Beijing rethinks the balance of its energy needs, including how much liquefied natural gas (LNG) it might use, two Russian sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Gazprom, which is already building a gas pipeline from Eastern Siberia to China – the Power of Siberia – was in talks over two more routes: the so-called western gas route and a gas pipeline from the Pacific Island of Sakhalin. “The Power of Siberia-2 (the western route) and the Sakhalin pipeline – there are no moves. There are a lot of factors and they (China) are not yet ready to take any decisions,” a source familiar with the Russia-China energy talks said. A Gazprom source also said there were no developments on the two pipelines, whose combined capacity, if built, is seen adding up to another 40 billion cubic metres (bcm) in possible gas supplies from Russia to China per year. The Power of Siberia pipeline, expected to be launched by the end of the decade or in the early 2020s, should bring 38 bcm to China per year. Gazprom managed to clinch the Power of Siberia deal after ten years of painstaking talks with Beijing. Neither Gazprom nor state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) immediately responded to requests for comment. According to BP’s energy outlook to 2035, the share of pipeline gas supplies to China, including from Russia, will remain largely unchanged over the ten years from 2025, with the share of LNG and China’s own gas output significantly rising. “We don’t see a room yet for (additional) pipeline gas from Russia to China except from the already signed Power of Siberia contract (before 2035),” Vladimir Drebentsov, head of Russia &CIS economics at BP, told Reuters. Tom Johnson Jersey
Ignoring India, Iran Inks Gas Field Deal with Russian Firm
Iran has signed a basic agreement with Russian energy giant Gazprom for development of Farzad B gas field, discovered by a consortium of Indian state-run companies, in an apparent retaliation against India’s bid to pressure Tehran for a formal deal by cutting purchase of Iranian oil. This is likely to strain ties between the two countries as it can potentially hit India’s ongoing participation and investment in development of oil and gas sector in Iran. The agreement with Russia comes on the back of India’s failure to finalize a commercial contract for Farzad B with Iran despite the optimism expressed by PM Narendra Modi and President Hassan Rouhani for the same when they met in Tehran last year. Iran’s oil minister Bijan Zanganeh recently told Argus, the top global energy market information provider, that Farzad-B field was among three such agreements signed with Gazprom. The other two fields are North Pars and Kish gas fields. Zanganeh’s announcement, made in an interview to Argus publication, follows his threat to replace the Indian consortium led by ONGC Videsh, the overseas acquisition arm of flagship explorer ONGC, in Farzad-B. TOI had on May 30 reported that Iran was considering the option of inducting companies from other countries to replace the Indian consortium or relegate it to developing a small part of the offshore field. Government officials here downplayed Iran’s preliminary deal with Gazprom and said they were positive about a formal deal. But there are others who see the Gazprom deal as Tehran’s willingness to play hardball and let commercial considerations guide relations with India. Farzad-B negotiations have been in a stalemate since the field’s discovery in 2008. The two sides have missed several deadlines even after oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s visit to the country last year. India has blamed Iran’s flip-flop over the terms of the delay, while Tehran holds the Indian consortium’s offer as “unsatisfactory”. As reported by TOI, miffed with the delay, New Delhi asked its refiners to reduce oil imports from Iran by a fifth. India is Iran’s key oil buyer. Iran hit back by reducing the payment window from 90 days to 60 days for Indian refiners. National Iranian Oil Company also cut the discount on ocean freight it offered to Indian buyers from 80% to nearly 60%. India had stood by Iran through the sanctions and continued to buy Iranian crude after seeking a US waiver. Jim Kelly Womens Jersey
All India daily revision of petrol price from June 16
India’s state-run oil marketing companies will revise petrol price on a daily basis all across the country beginning June 16, ET Now reported on Wednesday citing unidentified sources from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The reported roll out of daily petrol price revision mechanism all across India comes close on the heels of a pilot project to review petrol and diesel prices on a daily basis in five cities from May 1. There is no immediate information available on daily revision of diesel prices across all India. At present, India’s three state-run oil marketing companies Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp review retail fuel prices periodically and usually revise them every fortnight to pass on the impact of global crude oil prices on their purchases. Earlier in May, the three fuel retailers begun a pilot in the cities of Puducherry and Vizag in southern India, Udaipur in the West, Jamshedpur in the East and Chandigarh in the North to revise petrol and diesel prices everyday, before implementing the mechanism nationwide in order to better shield themselves from volatility in global crude oil prices. Dynamic gains Since these three companies together control the bulk of the fuel retail market with over 90% of the operational outlets between them, and hence practically set the benchmarks in fuel pricing, the private fuel marketers Reliance Industries and Essar Oil, who have most of the remaining market, are also expected to soon follow suit. The daily price change practice, commonly followed in many developed countries, is called dynamic fuel pricing. It is a practice in which the companies change the prices of petrol and diesel every day, based on crude price movements and don’t have to wait for a fortnightly review to adjust the prices. Crude impact The proposed move will allow the oil companies to align their retail prices more closely with the crude prices and will help them in tapering their losses, as currently, the oil companies are vulnerable to fluctuations in currency and crude oil prices over the 14-day cycle of retail price adjustment. This shift in pricing practice will also help in predicting their margins more accurately. The introduction of daily price revision mechanism will likely propel Indian retail fuel market to the international standards. This move will also allow private competitors, Essar Oil and Reliance Industries, which currently follow the price set by state-owned companies, to also shift to a dynamic model. The revision in retail fuel prices by the state-run oil marketing companies on a daily basis instead of fortnightly was recommended by the experts and was not on the orders of the government, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said in April. Jarvis Landry Jersey
GDF to sell entire 10% stake in Petronet LNG for up to $512 million
GDF International will sell its entire 10 per cent stake in India’s Petronet LNG in block trades on Thursday for up to $512 million, according to a deal term sheet. GDF will sell the shares in a price range of Rs 417-440 a share, according to the term sheet. The price range is a nil to 5.2 per cent discount to Petronet’s Wednesday closing price of Rs 440. JPMorgan and Citi are the banks on the deal. Roberto Clemente Womens Jersey