Indian Oil Corp slashes oil import tender time by half
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has cut by more than half the time it takes to finalise a crude oil import tender after the government gave flexibility to state refiners to devise their own crude import policies. IOC, the nation’s largest oil firm, used to take 26 hours to decide on a tender for import of crude oil from spot or current market. In April, after the Cabinet gave state-owned oil refiners freedom to devise their own crude import policies, the time has been shrunk to 12 hours, a senior company official said. Time for deciding on tenders for export of petroleum products or fuel has been cut to just 9 hours from previous 35 hours. “Earlier, we had a three-member committee comprising two company executives and one senior official of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to decide on awarding tenders for import of crude oil from the spot market. “Now we have an internal committee which can take decisions quickly,” he said. The government gave flexibility to oil PSUs to help them secure cheaper oil cargoes in an oversupplied market. The new policy almost puts state-owned refiners on par with private firms like Reliance Industries and Essar Oil. “We now have greater flexibility but still to operate within the framework of (anti-corruption watchdog) CVC guidelines,” the official said. The previous policy limited purchases to a handful of companies, often leading to PSUs missing out on chance to grab cheap, distressed cargoes. Oil PSUs, on an average, import 70-80 per cent of their oil through annual supply deals, also called term contracts. The remaining is bought from the spot or current market through tenders. Term imports on official selling price of the exporter country and there is not much that can be done about it. Tyler Kroft Jersey
Essar Oil looks to double petrol pumps to 4,300 in 18 months
Essar Oil, India’s second largest private oil refiner, plans to nearly double its petrol pumps to 4,300 in next 18 months, a senior company executive said. “We have 2,225 petrol pumps now which we will increase to 4,300 in next 18 months,” Essar Oil’s CEO Retail Madhur Taneja said. The retail network expansion planned is on franchise model and will entail an investment of about Rs 25 billion by the pump owners. “We were the first private company to enter fuel retailing business when we in 2003 opened our first petrol station,” he said. The network was expanded to 1,400 outlets before the expansion was frozen in 2008-09 in view of private retailers being unable to compete with heavily subsidised public sector oil firms. After diesel price was deregulated or freed from government control in October 2014, the expansion was restarted and network has reached 2,225 now, he said. “We saw sales volume increase from 700,000 kilolitres in 2014-15 to 1.67 million kl in 2015-16 and we hope to continue to grow at over 100 per cent this year as well against an industry growth of 7-7.5 per cent,” he said. Essar Oil has a pan-India network now except for Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, he said. Its first petrol pump came up in Maharashtra about 13 years ago in 2003. Essar Oil was the first private company to enter petro product retailing in India at a time when the government was experimenting with the idea of deregulated oil pricing by freeing up the price of ATF. After a brief spell of deregulated product pricing, the diesel market was again regulated in 2004. The move posed challenges for private oil companies like Essar. Through the course of this regulation regime, Essar Oil, in a bid to keep its retail ambitions alive, provided financial support to its franchisees through various schemes, thus helping them in tiding over the difficult times, he said. This earned the company the dealers’ trust. In October 2014 when diesel prices were completely deregulated and private retailers were given a level playing field with their PSU counterparts, the company already had a network of about 1,400 retail outlets. Over the last two years, Essar Oil has been on a ramp-up drive to create a larger retail footprint across the length and breadth of the country. Many outlets in its existing network were revived and work began on launching new Essar Oil pumps. Essar Oil’s franchisee model entails giving the petrol pump operator a land lease rental for the land he brings for setting up the outlet. Also, he is paid an pre-agreed return on the investment made in setting up the outlet as well as commission on petrol and diesel sold, he said. Robert Alford Jersey
Bhopal smart city corporators give thumbs down to e-tendering
Cutting across party lines, Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) corporators are opposing e-tendering, a move that could save the civic body crores and go a long way in making tender process transparent. On Thursday, BJP-led BMC corporators, who pride themselves on the smart city tag, met BMC commissioner Chhavi Bhardwaj challenging the order which makes mandatory e-tendering of all projects above Rs 1 lakh. The BMC commissioner’s directive has plugged loopholes in tendering system itself. Any tender will have to be sanctioned by city engineer and zone officer wherein breaking a project into various parts to avoid e-tendering would not be possible. Each corporator gets a fund of Rs 18 lakh per year. “E-tendering ensures competitive rate as compared to manual schedule of rate (SoR) format. The system is efficient and transparent and will benefit civic body,” said Bhardwaj. Sources said the new format for tendering was approved by BJP mayor Alok Sharma. However, BJP corporator Keval Mishra said, “The mayor has not approved the move. Some 35 corporators have opposed change in tendering norms. It is an arbitrary decision.” Mishra claimed SoR method works best for development. “In many cases through e-tendering the quote is so low that contractor does not complete his task. It hinders development,” Mishra and delegation to BMC officials. In her reply, Bhardwaj asked BMC officials to blacklist contractors that back off from projects. Mishra claimed that some 35% of projects through e-tendering have not been completed to date, an allegation refuted by BMC officials. Kevin Connauton Jersey
PM Narendra Modi to launch work on Smart City projects on June 25: Venkaiah Naidu
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would inaugurate work on Smart City projects from Pune on June 25, Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said today. The works would start simultaneously in 20 cities across the country, Naidu said, adding that development of some cities as ‘smart cities’ would motivate others also to work for progress. “It is like a light house. If there is a light house, everybody would look at that. If some smart cities are developed, there will be competition among others also, municipalities will increase their revenue and things will improve,” he said here. The Smart City mission, one of the flagship programmes of the NDA government, was announced on June 25 last year. He said Modi is leading the country on the path of progress with innovative thinking and out of the box ideas and cited examples like supplying neem-coated urea and massive construction of highways. The Union minister stressed that “reform, perform and transform” is the motto of the NDA government and Modi. “We can proudly say that it is Narendra Modi who is the reformer, performer and transformer of the country,” he said. Referring to Congress’ dig at him for praising the Prime Minister, Naidu, who has in the past described Modi as “God’s gift to India” and “messiah of the poor”, wondered why it could not be done for good work and asked if only “one family”, after whom roads, airports and even canals are named in the country, should be praised all the time. Naidu was speaking at a reception organised on his visit to the Telangana BJP headquarters in the city after his election to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan. BJP has emerged as the true pan-India party with its footprint seen all over the country, he said, adding Modi would “bring more revolutionary changes in the country in the coming days”. “We do not have full majority (in Rajya Sabha). Otherwise, the vehicle would have moved with even greater speed. The Rajya Sabha obstacle is likely to lessen in the coming days. Congress party is weakening,” the Parliamentary Affairs minister said. BJP is the only party to nominate two minority leaders (Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and MJ Akbar) in the election to fill 57 vacancies in Rajya Sabha, he said. “No political party has given even single seat to minorities out of the 57 Rajya Sabha vacancies,” he said. Stating that Modi is the biggest communicator for BJP, he asked partymen to strengthen the party in Telangana. Travis Wood Womens Jersey
Airbus Helicopters sees greater focus on military business
Airbus’s helicopter business expects to increase its focus on military aviation in the coming years, its boss said at the International Aerospace Exhibition (ILA) in Berlin on Wednesday. The business made 6.8 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in revenues in 2015, split fairly evenly between its civilian and military sides, according to its annual report. “We will become a little more military,” Airbus Helicopters Chief Executive Guillaume Faury told reporters. He said the shift was likely to take place within the next three to five years, and was simply a development he observed, not something Airbus Helicopters actively pursued. Faury said demand from the oil and gas sector had nearly halted, hit by oil companies seeking to reduce costs following a slump in the price of crude. In contrast, interest in military helicopters had risen amid heightened global security concerns and clients were increasingly looking into helicopters to quickly respond to threats, he said. Randy Bullock Jersey
India must transform its unorganised food system: Report
India’s food system is largely unorganised and highly fragmented, a report by an American think-tank said, underlining that the country must reform government procurement, tariff and tax policies affecting urban food delivery to feed its growing cities. The prestigious Chicago Council on Global Affairs in its report said that substantial public investments are needed to expand and increase the quality of storage, handling and transportation infrastructure. It said that India’s food system is largely unorganised and highly fragmented, inhibiting large-scale procurement, distribution, and retail sales. Authored by Andrea Durkin, the report ‘Investing to Nourish India’s Cities’ recommended that India should reform government procurement, tariff and tax policies affecting urban food delivery. It also recommends ways to reduce regulatory complexity and enhance food testing capacity. To improve the supply system, the paper further identifies areas of improvement in transit, warehousing, cold chains, retail and processing that could improve urban food security in India. “The scale of food and nutrition needed to sustain that is hard to fathom and India’s food system is already failing to deliver food security for all,” said Alesha Black, director of the Council’s Global Food and Agriculture Programme. “Now imagine when that population doubles in the next 40 years. India has to transform its food system to feed that urban growth,” he said. The report argues that the food system in India must transform to feed its growing cities. Increasing urban employment and rising incomes portend significant growth for India’s $360 billion food market. Yet substantial public and private investments, as well as key regulatory reforms, are needed to update India’s unorganised, fragmented food system, it said. “There is no more fundamental measure of the well-being of a population than its food and nutrition security,” Durkin said. “India must make targeted public investments and create a path for the private sector to improve the state of urban nutrition and meet growing demand for food in India’s cities,” said the report. Kevin White Authentic Jersey
GST will be no game-changer: Subramanian Swamy
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy today said passage of the bill facilitating the Goods and Services Tax (GST), being hailed as the biggest indirect taxation reform, will “not benefit” the economy significantly. “I don’t think GST is going to be a game-changer. If it comes, it is ok. If it doesn’t come also it is ok,” he said, speaking at the industry lobby Indian Merchant Chamber (IMC) here. “GST…it is not big deal for the Indian economy. There is a feeling that it will simplify the tax system, I have no objection to it,” he said. It can be noted that the industry has been pegging an increase of upto 2 percentage points in the GDP growth just by the passage of this legislation which is stuck for many years now under two Union governments. Swamy also noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had objected to the GST when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, and now the Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalitha is objecting to it. “At one stage, when Mr Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister, he took objections and wrote a letter to the government,” he said. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said earlier this week that most of the states barring Tamil Nadu have come on board on the long-pending Goods and Services Tax bill and expressed hope of pushing the legislation in the upcoming Monsoon Session. John Randle Womens Jersey
Old aussie oil fields spurned in cheap crude age
They’re among the oldest oil fields in Australia still in production. Now they are proving superfluous to some of the world’s biggest producers that are purging high-cost assets to weather crude’s collapse. While the dozen or so depleted fields in the Gippsland Basin in southeast Australia are hardly any company’s crown jewels — combined they produce 19,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day — they once put Australia on the map for energy investors and still include the country’s largest single find, according to Exxon Mobil, which is now interested in selling them with its joint venture partner, BHP Billiton. Energy giants are shutting or selling aging fields from the North Sea to China as investing to maintain them makes less sense nearly two years into the biggest oil crash in a generation, with prices still more than 50% below the level of June 2014. The bust was exacerbated by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ Saudi Arabia-led strategy of trying to win market share from highercost producers. “Australia is a mature basin with a limited reserve base. This means high cost,” Amrita Sen, chief oil economist for Energy Aspects in London, said by e-mail. “In the current oil price environment with everyone focused on cost cutting, it makes sense for majors to divest while PE companies may pick it up for the short term.” Kingfish Field Among the fields being considered for sale is Kingfish, discovered in 1967 and still the largest find in the country’s history, according to Exxon’s Esso Australia unit. Esso and BHP are looking for parties with experience to capture the remaining potential of the assets, Esso said in a statement. BHP and Esso, which both have a 50% stake in the venture, drilled the first well in the region in 1965. Since then it has produced more than 4 billion barrels of oil and 8 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to Esso. The oil production amounts to about 44% of all of Australia’s oil production since 1965, according to data from BP. The country’s output has fallen by more than half since peaking in 2000. The operation “put Australia on the map for global oil and gas industry investors,” Exxon said in a presentation on the Australian Institute of Energy’s website. As of 2007, Gippsland fields had produced 90% of their initial oil reserves, according to a report on an Australian government website. Selling aging energy assets fits with BHP’s strategy to divest “non-core, late life assets,” the producer said in a statement. North Sea Royal Dutch Shell is in talks with potential buyers for some North Sea assets, people familiar with the matter said in May. Sinopec Shengli Oilfield Co., one of China’s major producers, said it would shut four of its least profitable fields to save as much as 130 million yuan ($19.9 million) in operating costs, according to a statement on its Weibo account this year. Joe Berger Jersey
Indian Oil Corp likely to bag 37.5% stake in proposed JV to manage ATF at airports
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is likely to take the largest 37.5% stake in the proposed joint venture to manage fuelling facilities at all airports controlled by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Airports Authority of India is likely to have a quarter stake while Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) will have 18.75% each in the joint venture that has been negotiated for long with the AAI and IndianOil locked in a keen contest for the larger stake. he idea of a common fuelling facility with joint ownership is to allow open access to all fuel suppliers for a fee without having to erect their own separate facilities. Reliance Industries (RIL) has also written to the government seeking equity in the venture and is awaiting a decision, sources said. In its communication, Reliance Industries has claimed that the oil ministry had earlier said private players would also have a role. Reliance Industries, Indian Oil Corp, HPCL and BPCL declined to comment on the matter. The proposed joint venture will oversee about one-third of aviation fuel business in India. The rest is at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, where either private airports solely or in separate joint ventures with state oil firms manage the fuelling facilities. Indian aviation market is poised to be the third-largest in the world by 2026. Domestic airlines, aided by low fuel prices that account for about 40% of their operating cost, carried nearly a quarter more passengers in the first four months of 2016 from a year ago. Domestic aviation turbine fuel (ATF) sales rose 9% to 6.2 million tonnes in 2015-16, encouraging oil giant BP to obtain permission to market jet fuel in India. Indian Oil Corp has long dominated the ATF business with storage and fuelling facility at all major airports. Its refineries located across the country offer it the flexibility needed to place fuels at airports easily and cheaply while its longstanding relationships with clients give it an edge in the market. It has more than 60% market share while private players such as RIL and Essar Oil account for about 5%. It is this dominance that made IndianOil a little reluctant to agree to the idea of a common infrastructure and led to long-drawn negotiations with AAI, which also wanted the largest share in the joint venture, according to sources. Ross Stripling Womens Jersey
Russia’s Gazprom, Dharmendra Pradhan discuss LNG supplies to GAIL
Russia’s Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller and India’s Energy Minister Dharmendra Pradhan discussed on Thursday liquefied natural gas supplies to India’s GAIL company, Gazprom said in a statement. The supplies were discussed in the context of an existing contract between Gazprom and GAIL, Gazprom said in the statement. Brett Favre Authentic Jersey