Comments
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament is discussing a note that says private sector players such as Reliance Industries Ltd and Essar Oil Ltd have got undue benefit while selling their products to the three public sector oil retailers-cum-refiners.
The internal note, circulated among the PAC members, said that PSU retailers lift petroleum products from private and public sector standalone refineries to meet the gap between production and domestic requirement on commercial terms.
“The extent of benefit to the private refineries for a single year on HSD alone is said to be around ₹667 crore of which RIL benefited by ₹304 crore and Essar to the extent of ₹363 crore,” the note said.
The PAC, which has started deliberations on a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on “Pricing Mechanism of Major Petroleum Products in Central Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies” met representatives of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural gas, BPCL, HPCL and IOCL recently in Mumbai.
Even though the prices of petroleum products at refinery gate were deregulated, the note said, it could be seen that the PSU oil marketing companies purchase refined products from the private and stand-alone refineries at Trade Parity Price for Petrol and HSD, and at Import Parity Price for superior kerosene oil and LPG for the designated port of delivery.
The private refineries export the balance petroleum products at prices comparable to Export Parity Price (EPP), which is less than the trade parity and import parity, received on supply to OMCs.
In this process procuring products from private and PSU refineries at TPP/IPP extended an undue benefit to them, it said.
“It is important to add that this undue benefit was for only one year and this has not been assessed for the remaining years. Similarly, this was estimated only for HSD and for the remaining products, it was not estimated,” the note added citing the CAG report.
A senior member in the panel told BusinessLine that the panel was viewing the matter very seriously. “There is a demand to summon representatives of RIL and Essar on the issue,” the member added.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.