State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has sought access to a data room to help fix the price at which it can acquire government's 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL.

India's largest oil and gas producer has so far been given an information memorandum (IM) by government's transaction advisor which ONGC feels is not sufficient to arrive at a valuation of Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), sources privy to the development said.

Given the government’s inability to take tough decisions on privatising PSUs, it is not clear how it plans to take away various performing oil/gas fields from ONGC and give these away on a profit-share to various private oilcos—the one that promises the most output will likely win the bid and get a 60% share in these fields. These fields produce around a fourth of ONGC’s oil and gas output, so logically the PSU’s board has to oppose the move—unless the government can demonstrate to it that the increase in oil/gas will be so much after the fields are given to the private sector that ONGC stands to gain with even a lower equity share in the fields.

India’s state oil refiners are planning an aggressive push into natural gas in coming years to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of making the fuel a bigger part of the country’s energy mix.

State-owned oil companies - Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum - are planning to raise gas contributions to between 5 and 15 per cent of their incomes over the next few years, up from nearly none now, company executives said.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) is not yet clear about the valuation of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), the oil marketing company it expects to acquire by around March next year.

The country's largest driller is working independently to arrive at a fair price for the deal.

A special CBI court here has acquitted two persons in a corruption case, citing lack of evidence and the prosecution’s failure to prove the charges. Special judge P S Tarare recently acquitted a former convener of the Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA), Ashok Singh, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) executive Shishir Kumar Dubey. The CBI had filed the charge sheet against Singh, who was then Chief Regional Manager at HPCL’s Vashi Regional Office, and station manager Dubey for allegedly manipulating petrol pump meter readings and misappropriating funds between 2004 and 2007.

New Delhi: The net profit of state-owned refiner HPCL zoomed 147 per cent to Rs 1,735 crore in the second quarter of the fiscal because of higher inventory gains and refinery margins. "The increase in profit is due to higher crude throughput, better refinery margin, higher domestic market sales and inventory gains against inventory loss compared with the corresponding period of last year," HPCL chairman and managing director Mukesh K. Surana said.

A new report has valued assets of Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) at Rs 114,000 crore — nearly 70 per cent premium to its current market capitalisation of around Rs 66,000 crore. The higher valuation of HPCL’s assets by JM Financial, if accepted by the government, would mean a higher outgo for ONGC.

The JM Financial report has been submitted to the government, which had mandated the Mumbai firm to advise it on the transaction.

New Delhi: Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) is likely to acquire Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) in a share-swap deal to become India’s second-largest oil refiner. The merger is likely to take place after ONGC, country’s biggest oil and gas explorer, completes acquisition of HPCL in an all-cash deal by December or January, officials in know of the development said.

MRPL is a subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd (ONGC). At present, ONGC owns 71.63% stake in MRPL while HPCL has 16.96%. Once ONGC acquires 51.11% stake in HPCL, India’s third-largest refiner, for about Rs35,000 crore, it will have two refinery subsidiaries - HPCL and MRPL.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) is likely to acquire Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) in a share-swap deal to become India’s second-largest oil refiner. The merger is likely to take place after ONGC, country’s biggest oil and gas explorer, completes acquisition of HPCL in an all-cash deal by December or January, officials in know of the development said. MRPL is a subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC). At present, ONGC owns 71.63 per cent stake in MRPL while HPCL has 16.96 per cent.

New Delhi: Fuel retailers Indian Oil Corp. Ltd., Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. are expanding their network of liquified petroleum gas (LPG) dealerships by appointing more than 6000 new distributors, the oil ministry said on Friday.

This will mainly be in rural areas and in addition to the locations for which selection has already been made and the process of commissioning distributorship is underway, the ministry said in a statement.

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