| Indian Oil holds 13.7 crore equity shares or 9.61 per cent stake in ONGC and 4.08 crore equity shares or 4.83 per cent in GAIL. |
| The company's board had on December 28 approved the sale of up to 20 per cent of its stake in ONGC and up to 50 per cent in GAIL this fiscal, SV Narsimhan, director (finance) Indian Oil said. |
| He was speaking at the sidelines of Energy Security Summit organised by Observer Research Foundation and Assocham today. |
| Indian Oil is expected to raise about Rs 3,800-4,000 crore from the divestment. At today's price, IOC will mop up Rs 3,200 crore from the sale of 2.74 crore ONGC equity shares and Rs 580 crore from the sale of 2.04 crore GAIL equity shares. |
| Narsimhan, in his presentation on pricing issues in the oil sector, said India needed to frame policies keeping in mind that it was going to become increasingly dependent on oil imports. |
| While at present, nearly 70 per cent of the total oil consumption is imported, this dependence was expected to increase to 88 per cent in 2025. |
| On government policy of pricing and subsidies, Narsimhan said the government should bear the cost of subsidies rather than asking companies to share the burden. |
| He said to prevent cascading effect of Customs duties, the government should move towards specific duties instead of ad-valorem taxes. |
| Former Pakistan Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas Usman Aminuddin added that countries should look at alternative sources of energy. |
| "One should be careful that a cartel for natural gas as in case of crude does not form," he cautioned. |
| Aminuddin suggested that South Asia Fund be constituted to finance the development of alternative sources of energy. |
| He also endorsed the proposal of Pakistan participating in the Indo-Iran pipeline, as Pakistan was going to face severe natural gas crunch in future. |
Top Section
Explore Business Standard