The Hindu Business Line : Four cos seek to retail petro goods

OIL and Natural Gas Corporation and Numaligarh Refineries Ltd have applied to the Government for authorisation to retail petrol and diesel, according to the Union Petroleum Minister, Mr Ram Naik.

Inaugurating the `Gastech 2002' conference on Friday, Mr Naik said that besides these two companies, Reliance Petroleum Corporation (RPL) and Essar Oil Ltd (EOL) have also applied to the Government for grant of marketing rights.

According to Mr Naik, the Government is currently processing the four applications and will arrive at a decision by the end of the month.

While RPL had applied for sale of 10 million tones of diesel and 2.4 million tonnes of petrol through 5,849 retail outlets, Essar has sought permission to set up 1,700 retail outlets. ONGC has made an application to set up 400-500 retail outlets to sell transportation fuels in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

According to ONGC officials, the company has no immediate plans to open start retail operations for transportation fuels. The proposal comes more in the wake of the deadline to submit an make an application, senior officials said.

Speaking at the conference, Mr Naik said that the Petroleum Regulatory Board Bill will be introduced in the Parliament next week.

In his address, Mr Naik pointed out that currently public sector oil companies are selling petrol at Rs 7-8 below costs while in the case of diesel it is around Rs 4-5 per litre since international crude prices were $6 per barrel above the $20 per barrel mark when consumer prices were set.

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