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The Government will sell stake in state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) this fiscal even though falling global oil prices pose a challenge, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today said.
The Government was to sell 5 per cent of its stake in the country’s biggest oil and gas producer ONGC to raise Rs 17,000-18,000 crore.
But the double impact of tumbling global oil prices and the rising subsidy burden has left the ONGC stock battered.
Its share has slipped from Rs 472 in June last year to Rs 352.90 (at 1215 pm today). At current price, the Government will get about Rs 15,000 crore.
“We will factor in market conditions before disinvestment,” Pradhan told reporters on the sidelines of the India Energy Congress here.
Pradhan said that the stake sale in ONGC was very much on the list of disinvestment candidates for the current fiscal.
While slumping oil prices make the prospects of stake sale in ONGC grimmer, the Government has lined-up four other state-run firms — Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL), National Aluminium (Nalco), and Dredging Corporation (DCIL) for disinvestment this fiscal.
It plans to sell 10 per cent stake in IOC as well as Nalco, and 5 per cent stake each in BHEL and DCIL.
The Government, Pradhan said, was reworking the subsidy sharing formula. “The oil prices pose a challenge (for ONGC),” he said.
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