The Hindu Business Line : Four oil, gas PSUs ink fresh MoUs for new fiscal

THE four public sector oil and gas majors - GAIL (India) Ltd, Bharat Petroleum (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) - on Monday inked fresh agreements with the Government, setting new targets for production and profits during fiscal 2004-05.

The memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed by the respective chairmen and managing directors (CMDs) of the oil majors on behalf of the individual PSUs and the Petroleum Secretary, Mr B.K. Chaturvedi, on behalf of the Union Government.

The MoU with GAIL for the new fiscal has earmarked a higher gross margin target at Rs 3,073.45 crore as against the target of Rs 2,583.7 crore set for the current fiscal. The company has been set a sales target for natural gas at 58.03 million metric standard cubic metres per day (MMSCMD). The target for the production for petrochemicals has been pegged at 2,82,779 tonnes, nearly 23,000 tonnes higher than the 2,60,000-tonne target that was set for 2003-04.

As per the MoU, GAIL will strive for all-round excellence in providing services to customers and stakeholders through the best-in-class standards of operations, technologies and practices that includes safety, health and environment.

In its MoU for the 15th consecutive year, BPCL, which has the distinction of achieving `excellent' ratings for its performances each year since 1990-91, has been set a crude throughput target for its Mumbai refinery at 8.70 million tonnes (m.t.) as compared to the target of 8.28 m.t. set for 2003-04.

The thrust in the MoU for 2004-05 has been enlarged to encompass key parameters on quality assurance, customer service/satisfaction and efforts towards research and development (R&D) and environment upgradation. Accordingly, new parameters on quality assurance benchmarking and the development of novel technology for clean fuels by the corporate R&D centre has been incorporated in the MoU. Emphasis has also been laid on speedy completion of major projects under implementation within the scheduled time and approved cost, namely, the refinery modernisation project at Mumbai and commissioning of the new LPG plants at Vijaywada and Bangalore.

Similarly, higher performance targets have also been set for HPCL and OIL in their MoUs with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas for the new fiscal. HPCL has been earmarked a crude throughput target of 6.02 m.t. at its refinery in Mumbai and 7.5 m.t. at Visakhapatnam. The company proposes to complete green fuels and emission control projects at a cost of Rs 1,152 crore at its Mumbai refinery and at Rs 1,635 crore at Vizag refinery by August 2004 and March 2005, respectively. The sales turnover target has been increased to Rs 55,805 crore against the 2003-04 target of Rs 53,780 crore.

To enhance customer satisfaction, a message "sample testing and measuring facilities available here" would be prominently displayed at retail outlets for greater customer confidence and assurance. The initiative to brand retail outlets as `Club HP' would be implemented at 1,800 outlets offering a promise of outstanding care for vehicles and customers.

In its MoU, OIL has been set a target to produce 3.21 m.t. of crude oil during 2004-05 as against the current year's target of three m.t. Similarly, the target for gas production has been fixed higher at 2,059 million cubic metres (MCM) as against the current fiscal's target of 1,815 MCM. The target for LPG production has been kept unchanged at 50,000 tonnes for 2004-05. OIL's gross sales turnover has been targeted to increase to Rs 2,976.25 crore in 2004-05 as compared to the target of Rs 2,710.26 crore fixed for 2003-04.