Gujarat government will stop selling kerosene through Public Distribution System by year-end
The Gujarat government will gradually stop selling kerosene at subsidised rates through the public distribution system (PDS) by the end of this year. In Gujarat, families with above the poverty line (APL) ration card receive kerosene from fair price shops, but now they will have to switch over to LPG or PNG for cooking. On May 10, the state government’s food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department issued a resolution accordingly. The government resolution (GR) mentioned that APL ration card holders residing in eight municipal corporations would have to get gas connection at their own expense by August 31, whereas those residing in other areas would have to get gas connection by November 30. Accordingly, as per the GR, APL ration card holders in the eight cities would not get kerosene at subsidised rates from fair price shops September 1, and those living elsewhere would not get kerosene (from fair price shops) from December 1. The GR also mentioned that the fuel controller officer in Ahmedabad and other district civil supplies officers will have to send notices to all the beneficiaries at their residential addresses by May end, informing about the decision. The officials will also have to instruct the beneficiaries that they will have to make arrangements to get gas connection on time. The resolution reads as: “As many as 1.260 million gas connections have been given to beneficiaries under the Pradhanmantri Ujjvala Yojana. Now, all the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Below Poverty Line (BPL) families having ration cards shall get gas connection at subsidised rates under the state government’s LPG-LNG scheme. The use of kerosene has been decreasing in the state gradually and the government aims to make clean fuel available to citizens through LPG and PNG connections. Citizens should decrease their use of kerosene further more and all the APL ration card holders will have to voluntarily switch over to use LPG or PNG from kerosene for cooking purpose.” The Gujarat government launched the LPG and PNG connection subsidy scheme for AAY and BPL families of the state on Gujarat Foundation Day on May 1 this year. Under the scheme, the Gujarat government will pay a one-time subsidy of Rs 1,600 to each beneficiary family for deposits payable for LPG and PNG gas connections. Marty Mcsorley Authentic Jersey
India okays MoU to tackle oil spills
The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and South Asian Cooperative Environment Programme (SACEP) for co-operation on the response to oil and chemical pollution in the South Asian seas in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo. The MoU intends to promote closer cooperation between India and other maritime nations comprising the South Asian seas region namely Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka for protection and preservation of the marine environment in the region. A high-level delegation led by DG Rajendra Singh, Director General Indian Coast Guard on official visit to Colombo, Sri Lanka has handed over the instrument of consent by the Government of India to the Dr Muhammad Khurshid, Director General, SACEP Colombo, Sri Lanka on May 12 in presence of Indian High Commission, Colombo staff and other dignitaries. Indian Coast Guard on behalf of the centre will be responsible for cooperation and respond to all incidents of oil and chemical pollution in South Asian Seas Region as and when assistance is requested by the member state during a spill. With a view to promote and support protection, management and enhancement of the environment in the South Asian region, the Governments of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka established the SACEP in 1982 as an inter-governmental organisation, with its headquarter in Colombo. The SACEP jointly with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) developed a “Regional Oil Spill Contingency Plan” in 1989 to facilitate international co-operation and mutual assistance in preparing for and responding to a major oil pollution incident in the seas around the Maritime States of Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Alfred Morris Jersey
Iran to award Farzad B to domestic companies if India withdraws
The managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) said Farzad B gas field (in the Persian Gulf) development project will be awarded to Iranian contractors if India pulls back from the negotiations, ILNA reported on Saturday. Speaking about the probable effects of Trump’s decision to leave the nuclear deal on India’s collaboration in Farzad B development project, Mohammad Meshkinfam said, “I don’t think that the U.S.’s decision on leaving the nuclear deal will affect the Indian side.” “Currently, we don’t know for sure what their [the Indian side] decision will be, however we are ready to work with them,” the official added. Meshkinfam further noted that even if India decides to withdraw from the project, since Farzad B field does not need pressure boosting, the development project wouldn’t be complicated and the work could be done by capable domestic companies. Asked about the South Pars Oil Layer, the official said, “The Oil Layer development project is a little more complicated and for that our focus is more on foreign contractors.” “Of course, we are already producing oil in this field, but we need to cooperate with a foreign company to maintain and increase the production level”, he added. Xavier Grimble Authentic Jersey
Abu Dhabi oil giant ADNOC to pick up stake in Ratnagiri refinery project
UAE Minister and ADNOC Group CEO Sultan Al Jaber, Aramco CEO Amin H Nasser and Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will be present at the agreement signing in UAE tomorrow.NEW DELHI: After Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) will pick up stake in the planned USD 44-billion refinery-cum-petrochemical project in Maharashtra. An initial agreement for ADNOC taking stake is slated to be signed in UAE tomorrow, official sources said. Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, had last month signed an agreement to take up 50 per cent stake in the Ratnagiri refinery project. Aramco had, at the agreement signing event, stated that it will at a later date dilute some of its 50 per cent equity stake in the 60 million tonne-a-year refinery project in favour of another strategic investor. Now, the Saudi national oil company is diluting some of that stake to ADNOC, they said. UAE Minister and ADNOC Group CEO Sultan Al Jaber, Aramco CEO Amin H Nasser and Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will be present at the agreement signing in UAE tomorrow. As per the April agreement, Aramco is to supply half of the crude oil required for processing at the refinery that will be commissioned by 2025. State-owned refiners Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) will own the remaining 50 per cent stake. Like other major producers, Aramco and ADNOC are looking to lock in customers in the world’s third-largest oil consumer through the investment. Kuwait too is looking to invest in projects in return for getting an assured offtake of their crude oil. Last year, Saudi Arabia invested in refinery projects in Indonesia and Malaysia that came with long-term crude oil supply deals. Saudi Arabia was the biggest oil supplier to India till 2016-17, but slipped behind Iraq last fiscal. It had supplied 39.5 million tonnes of crude oil to India in 2016-17, ahead of 37.5 million tonnes by Iraq. But, in the first 11 months of 2017-18 fiscal, Saudi supplies at 33.9 million tonnes, lagged behind Iraqi exports of 42.4 million tonnes to India. UAE supplies a small quantity of oil to India. Aramco is also keen on venturing into fuel retailing in India. India has a refining capacity of 232.066 million tonnes, which exceeded the demand of 194.2 million tonnes in 2016-17 fiscal. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), this demand is expected to reach 458 million tonnes by 2040. IOC has 11 refineries with a total capacity of 81.2 MT, while BPCL has four refineries with a total capacity of 33.4 MT. HPCL has three refineries with a total capacity of 24.8 MT. Sam Bennett Authentic Jersey
$300 bn dollar energy investment coming to India in 10 yrs: Pradhan
Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday said about 300 billion dollars will be invested in the energy sector in next 10 years. The petroleum minister said this at the Indian Embassy while addressing over 250 Indian professionals, business leaders and community representatives working in the United Arab Emirates. Pradhan informed the gathering that India has become the world’s third largest energy consumer in the world. “After US (United States) and China, India consumes maximum primary energy. But, India figures on the list of least per capita energy consuming countries. What does it mean? According to energy analysts, out of Rs. 100 worth energy sale in 2040, Rs. 33 will be sold in India,” Pradhan said. He added that energy is one of the three to four components of any developing country. “There are four pillars of energy: It should be affordable, accessible, green, and sustainable. Once there were concerns in India regarding energy, but now it is becoming a happening energy spot in the world,” Pradhan said. In his speech, Pradhan also praised Prime Minister Modi and said no other government has been able to do the works that have been done during the past four years. During the speech, he also criticised Prime Minister’s detractors who have questioned his international visits. Talking about the impact of such visits of Prime Minister Modi, Pradhan said India saved about Rs. 100 billion after renegotiating the long term contract of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) with Qatar. ‘This is our scope. Who would like to lose it?” he asked. He also briefed the gathering that how Modi government changed the lives of poor rural women through Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY). The PMUY or the Ujjwala Scheme is a subsidy scheme launched to provide LPG gas connection to the families living below poverty line to protect women and children from the smoke emitted during the use of firewood for cooking purposes. Under the scheme, the government will provide Rs. 1,600 per gas connection in the next three years and aims to supply 50 million connections by the end of 2019. “The HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited) started selling liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in Mumbai in 1955 and by 2014 there were 130 million LPG connections in India. Within four years, our government added new 100 million LPG consumers,” Pradhan said. The event was organized by the Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Chapter of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and IBPG-Abu Dhabi. Later, Pradhan and UAE Minister of State and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Group CEO Dr. Sultan Al Jaber flagged off the first consignment of 2 million barrels of ADNOC crude for Mangalore Cavern on Saturday. During the day, Pradhan also held a bilateral meeting with H.E. Dr. Jaber. Minister Pradhan was accompanied by Ambassador Navdeep Suri, senior officials and CEOs for Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum. Pradhan is visiting UAE to follow up on the February 2018 UAE visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Harrison Butker Authentic Jersey
Argentina offshore auction attracts international oil producers
Oil firms, including Norway’s Statoil, U.S.’ Anadarko Petroleum Corp, China’s CNOOC and Malaysia’s Petronas, have shown interest in Argentina’s auction this year of offshore blocks for exploration and production, the country’s energy minister said on Wednesday. Argentina is still defining the blocks to be included in its auction, expected to receive bids in late November. The South American nation is also giving incentives for oil companies exploring at its large Vaca Muerta shale play to move from pilot to full development phase. Argentina faces growing regional competition as countries with large oil reserves, including Brazil and Mexico, are offering this year a record number of areas while starting a new wave of energy reforms to attract foreign investment. “It’s an unexplored area… We are expecting (to have) some companies already working in Argentina and new companies as well,” Minister Juan Jose Aranguren said on the sidelines of an energy conference. The country last year started creating a new framework for firms to move their projects to the production stage, which is boosting the unconventional gas output. The terms include lower labor costs, reduced taxes on imported drilling equipment and a fixed purchase price for the gas produced. In recent months, six projects in Vaca Muerta operated by France’s Total and Argentina’s Tecpetrol, CGC Combustibles and YPF have been granted access to the incentives for starting the production stage. The government expects 13 more concessions operated by Pan American Energy, YPF, Pluspetrol, Tecpetrol and Capex to adopt the incentive program in the coming months. A $500 million railway project to move raw material and equipment to Vaca Muerta – infrastructure needed by 2021 – is expected to be tendered by the end of May, Aranguren said. As the country’s unconventional gas production increases, Argentina is also in talks with its neighbors Chile and Bolivia to solve its seasonal gas deficit by increasing winter imports from Bolivia while selling its surplus to Chile in the summer. “This is quite a constraint. I’m prepared to pay more (to Bolivia) during the summer if we can adjust the volumes,” the minister said. Argentina under President Mauricio Macri has been pushing to reverse the nation’s oil and gas production decline while re-regulating the retail fuel market. But as global oil prices continue rising, refiners in the country are struggling to avoid transferring the hike to consumers. The minister said he will call oil producers to participate in a program recently agreed with refiners Royal Dutch Shell , Pan American and YPF to defer fuel price increases planned for May and June to the second half the year. “I think they could try to make sale terms easier for refining companies,” Aranguren said. P.K Subban Authentic Jersey
Indian refiners in no rush to seek alternatives to Iranian oil
Indian refiners said on Wednesday they were in no hurry to replace Iranian oil with alternatives, counting on the fact that many Western countries have so far declined to join the United States in pulling out of a nuclear deal with Tehran. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would reimpose economic curbs on Iran after withdrawing the United States from the 2015 agreement that lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme. But the leaders of Britain, Germany and France, which were signatories to the deal along with China and Russia, said in a joint statement that Trump’s decision was a cause for “regret and concern” and were seeking to salvage the deal. “We are largely unaffected,” said A.K. Sharma, finance chief at Indian Oil Corp (IOC). “This time the situation is different from the last time. We hope clarity on the real impact of sanctions will emerge in 10-15 days.” IOC, India’s biggest refiner, hopes to stick to its plans to buy as much as 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Iran in 2018/19, more than double the volume in the last fiscal year that ended in March, Sharma said. It would be difficult to replace Iranian oil given the “commercial terms” offered by Tehran, he said. India, which has long-standing ties with Iran but also has close political relations with the United States, is Iran’s top oil client after China. Its state refiners had chalked out plans to almost double oil imports from Iran this fiscal year, drawn to the virtual free shipping on oil sales offered by Iran, Reuters reported last month. The South Asian country remained a big buyer of Iranian oil even during previous Western sanctions, though it had to cut purchases to win some waivers as the trade was mostly done in U.S. dollars. Since the 2015 agreement, however, Indian refiners have been settling oil dues with Iran in euros. And given that three top European countries are still part of the deal, trade won’t be affected much, at least in the short term, said R. Ramachandran, head of refineries at state-run Bharat Petroleum Corp. In any case, oil sanctions will kick in in about six months, by which time most Indian refiners “may have consumed most of their Iranian volumes”, Ramachandran said. The U.S. Treasury Department has indicated that sanctions won’t be reimposed immediately, and will take up to 180 days to allow Iranian oil customers and other companies involved in doing business with Tehran to make plans. M.K. Surana, chairman of Hindustan Petroleum, said refiners may use that time to step up purchases from Iran. The Indian oil ministry has not commented on the U.S. pullout, but the foreign ministry on Wednesday called for diplomacy to resolve the dispute over the nuclear deal with Iran. Separately, South Korea said on Wednesday it would seek U.S. exemptions to buy Iranian oil, a path many big oil consumers are likely to follow in the wake of new U.S. sanctions on Tehran, which will tighten world oil markets and push up prices. Andreas Athanasiou Womens Jersey
Mitsui expects investment decision on Mozambique LNG project in 2018-19
Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co Ltd expects a final investment decision (FID) on a U.S. Anadarko-led offshore liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique in the year to March 31, 2019, its chief executive said on Wednesday. “The FID on the Mozambique Area 1 project during this financial year is in our sights,” Mitsui’s CEO Tatsuo Yasunaga told an analyst meeting. Spending on the 2 trillion yen ($18.3 billion) project will start in the following financial year, he said. The two-train, 12 million-tons-per-year project is expected to be completed in 2022-2023, and has secured more than 9 million tons a year in total binding and non-binding commitments from buyers, Yasunaga said. Asked whether Mitsui will increase its 10 percent stake in the project if Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) sells its 10 percent stake, Yasunaga said many parties are interested in taking a share in the project. “If JOGMEC decides to sell its stake, we have a basic interest (in buying), but we don’t have a plan to hold a 20 percent stake for a long time,” he said. “Companies that are interested in joining the project are lining up,” he said, adding that Mitsui’s basic policy is to hold a 10 percent stake in the project. ($1 = 109.5100 yen) Willie Cauley-Stein Authentic Jersey
IOC has temporarily moderated fuel prices: Chairman
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has kept prices of transport fuel unchanged since April 24, temporarily suspending the dynamic pricing regime and despite a rise in international rates, to avoid panic among consumers, IOC Chairman Sanjiv Singh said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters here on the sidelines of the launch of bids for City Gas Distribution (CGD) licenses, Singh said the decision is based on the belief that current global prices “are not supported by fundamentals.” “We have decided to temporarily moderate retail prices by not passing on the required increase as we believe the current international oil product prices are not supported by fundamentals. So we have decided to wait for a while,” Singh said. “Passing them on to consumers will unnecessarily create panic,” he said. The price of petrol per litre, on Tuesday, was Rs 74.63 and diesel was at Rs 65.93 — rates of both have remained unchanged since April 24. On that day, domestic retail petrol prices which had been rising for six consecutive days touched the highest in Delhi since September 14, 2013 when it reached Rs 76.06 a litre. The price of the Indian basket of crude oils, composed of 70 per cent sour grade Oman and Dubai crudes and the rest by sweet grade Brent, has gone upwards of $70 a barrel last month. Singh said it was a mere coincidence that the spike in international rates and the company’s decision to put a lid on prices comes just ahead of the assembly elections in Karnataka on May 12. Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told reporters at the event that the government had no role in the pricing of petrol and diesel by companies. Dexter Fowler Womens Jersey
Petroleum ministry refutes hike in non-subsidized price LPG price
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has refuted reports of alleged the hike in Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) price in the recent months. In a statement, the ministry said that there has rather been a fall of around Rs 100 in the retail selling price of non-subsidized price LPG price. “This is in reference to some news reports on increase in LPG prices in the recent months which is not based on facts. In this connection, it is clarified that the retail selling price of LPG (non-subsidized price) at Delhi has come down from Rs 747 in the month of December, 2017 to Rs.650.50 in the month of May, 2018, a fall of Rs.96.50. This is the price at which a consumer purchases the cylinder refill and the subsidy gets transferred to his account,” the statement said. Linval Joseph Authentic Jersey