Industry & Economy
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Petroleum
Petroleum Minister holds talks on merger of PSUs
Our Bureau
New Delhi
,
Aug. 12
THE Petroleum Minister, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, today held discussions with chief executives of public sector oil companies to explore the creation of integrated petroleum conglomerates through mergers.
Among the options discussed at the meeting was the merging of both Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on the one hand and Oil India Ltd (OIL) with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)). The resultant entities would emerge as two huge oil behemoths with global scale.
Not all the oil PSUs are said to have supported the proposal, which aims to prevent public sector oil companies from competing with one another and working at cross-purposes.
HPCL, for one, is said to have maintained that the existence of smaller entities would enable healthy competition in the marketplace and provide better value for consumers.
The merger proposal was opposed by BPCL and HPCL on the additional ground that they wanted more freedom to enter oil and gas exploration and production business.
According to sources, Mr Aiyer was not entirely in favour of public sector companies competing for overseas oil assets. He specifically referred to GAIL (India) Ltd's recent foray into Myanmar and its relations with ONGC Videsh Ltd, its partners in the overseas venture.
Alternatively, Mr Aiyer also looked at the options of restricting companies to only their core competencies instead of oil producers getting into fuel marketing and retailers venturing into upstream business.
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