India's biggest refiner Indian Oil Corp Ltd said on Wednesday that Iran may still invest in a refinery expansion project at one of its subsidiaries.

Indian Oil's chairman Sanjiv Singh said that Iran has not ruled out participating in the expansion at Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd, a south India-based 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery.

Mumbai: Shares of Indian Oil Corp. Ltd rose over 3% Friday after India’s largest oil firm on Thursday said its board of directors approved the buyback of 29.76 crore equity shares of the company for ₹4,435 crore. The share buyback price represents a 8.6% premium to Indian Oil’s Thursday closing price of ₹137.20 on BSE. On Friday, Indian Oil shares rose 3.10%, or ₹4.25, to ₹141.45 apiece on the BSE while the benchmark Sensex closed flat at 35,962.93 points.

State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) will buy back 29.76 crore shares for about Rs4,435 crore and spend another Rs 6,556 crore on paying an interim dividend to shareholders as the government taps cash-rich PSUs to meet its budget deficit.

The board of the country’s largest oil firm on Thursday approved a buyback of up to 29.76 crore equity shares, or 3.06%, at Rs 149 per share, IOC said in a regulatory filing.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking setting aside of the Allahabad High Court’s decision that had asked it to pay Rs 5,600 crore towards interest on deferred entry tax payable between 2001 and 2012 to the Uttar Pradesh government.

A Bench led by Justice AK Sikri posted the matter for further hearing on December 6.

The net profit of Indian Oil Corp (IOC) for the second quarter of the current fiscal dropped 12% to Rs 3,247 crore, compared with Rs 3,696 crore, owing to lower margins and foreign exchange losses, a factor which also affected the other two state-owned oil marketing companies —BPCL and HPCL — in the quarter under review.

An executive of state-owned Indian Oil Corporation on Tuesday said the company was hoping to raise at least $300 million under the new working capital norms within 20 days from now.

IOC had last week said it would invest Rs 54.63 billion in setting up a city gas distribution network for retailing CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households in seven districts.

Shares of state-owned oil & gas companies, including oil marketing companies (OMCs), are reeling under pressure falling by up to 29% on the BSE in intra-day deals, extending their Thursday’s fall after the government, on Thursday, asked the them to absorb a Re 1 a litre cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel. The government also cut the excise duty on petroleum products by Rs 1.50 a litre with immediate effect. This is the first time in over four years that prices of either petrol or diesel are being controlled.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) is not in a hurry to sell its stake in Indian Oil Corp and GAIL (India) and will wait for the right price before offloading the shares, a senior company official said.

ONGC holds 13.77 per cent stake in oil refiner IOC and 4.86 per cent in gas utility GAIL India.

India's crude oil demand is forecast to grow to 500 million tonnes per year by 2040, but persistent increases in oil prices might act as a dampener for the rate of growth, Partha Ghosh, an executive director at Indian Oil Corp said on Tuesday.

That would be equivalent to around 10 million barrels per day (bpd), up from about 4.7 million bpd in 2017.

Oil regulator PNGRB Monday declared the final list of winners of city gas retailing licences that had billionaire Gautam Adani’s group, state-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Torrent Gas as the big winner. Adani Gas won rights to retail CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households and industries in 13 cities on its own and another nine, including Allahabad, in a joint venture with IOC,

Inviting Real Estate Agents, Job Placements Agents, Educational Institutes, Software Service Providers, Real Estate Builders, Marriage Bureaus, Travel Agents, Restaurant Owners, Health & Fitness Centers and other Local Businesses to Post a FREE Classified Advertisement on Cootera.com Classifieds Website.