More oil and gas mergers likely: Minister Pradhan

GOING FORWARD, IOC OR BPCL COULD ACQUIRE THE GOVT’S STAKE IN OIL OR GAIL

Merger of more petroleum refiners and producers, to form vertically integrated companies, is possible, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradsaid on Monday. Pradhan said he believed the integration of more such oil and gas companies was possible as these companies were established for a certain objective and integrating them will help meet that objective.

With the merger of Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) into Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd (ONGC) almost complete, the focus will now be on the possible acquisition of the government's stake in Oil India Ltd (OIL) or GAIL (India) Ltd, by Indian Oil Corp Ltd (IOC) or Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL), reports Cogencis.

In December, Pradhan had said that BPCL would prefer integration with GAIL, and Oil India will be its second choice. In October, an official from IOC had said that the company was keen on buying the government's stake in either GAIL or Oil India. On the merger of Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd's refinery arms with Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd, Pradhan said it was for the Board of the companies to decide on merger of the arms to create a single refinery vertical in ONGC group.

On Saturday, ONGC, India’s largest refiner, said it will pay 473.97 rupees per share to the government and acquire the latter’s 51.1% stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corp, and that the transaction is likely to be completed by the end of the month. The government will raise 369.15 bln rupees from the acquisition and will exceed its disinvestment target of 725 billion rupees for financial year 2017-18 (AprilMarch). The government has raised 543.38 billion rupees by divesting its stake in public sector companies so far in the current financial year started April.