Steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) plan to sell a 10-per cent stake each in the under-construction Bathinda refinery in a public offering in Q4 of 2011 to raise Rs 1,000-1,500 crore.
State-owned HPCL and Singapore-based Mittal Energy Investment Pte Ltd, an L N Mittal Group firm, own 49 per cent each in HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL), which is building the Rs 18,919-crore refinery at Bathinda in Punjab. “We are planning to sell about 10 per cent of our stakes each through an initial public offering sometime in the fourth quarter of 2011 (calendar year),” a company official said.
The nine-million tonne a year refinery will be mechanically complete by April 2011 and full commissioning will happen by September. “The IPO is being planned after that,” he said. The official said the two partners have so far contributed Rs 2,800 crore each out of their Rs 3,500 crore equity share.
“We have been advised to bring down the stake to 30 per cent (each). But in the first tranche only 10 per cent will be sold and a follow-on or further public offering (FPO) may happen later,” he said.