New Delhi, July 17
With the exit of high-profile Chairman and Managing Director Subir Raha of state-owned oil producer, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the Petroleum Ministry has started flexing its muscles by asking the corporation to wind up its retail plans to sell petrol and diesel.

The government has asked the corporation to focus rather on finding more oil and gas. The company has, however, been permitted to complete already approved refinery projects.

Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) has also complained that the ONGC has under-notified its gas finds in the Krishna-Godavari block.

According to official sources, the DGH has informed the ministry that the ONGC has notified only three discoveries of A-1, U-1 and W-1, against the corporation’s announcement of five gas finds in the Krishna-Godavari basin.

The government has asked the management to wind up retail plans at a meeting of ministry officials and the new management of the ONGC called to review the business initiatives.

“We have been given a message that the ONGC should no more set up petrol pumps,” said a company official.

The ONGC currently has one petrol pump at Mangalore and had identified 45 locations from Dehra Dun to Ahmedabad for opening stations this year. The ONGC and its subsidiary MRPL had plans to raise the number of outlets to 1,100 by 2008 as part of its plans to diversify into downstream and liquefied natural gas imports to become an integrated oil and gas company with a turnover of $50 billion within the next few years.

The official said, “We were told that since fuel retailing is a loss-making proposition due to price controls, the ONGC should focus more on its core competence.”

However, the ministry, represented by its secretary M.S. Srinivasan and two joint secretaries at the meeting, allowed the ONGC to complete the ongoing expansion of MRPL to 15 million tonnes.

The official said there was no word on the new refineries at Barmer in Rajasthan, Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and a greenfield refinery adjacent to the existing MRPL.

Notably, Former Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar had openly criticised ONGC’s plans to enter retail business and to set up a special economic zone in Karnataka.

The ONGC had proposed to enter retail business, development of special economic zones at Kakinada and Dahej and wind energy projects to insulate its high-risk exploration business.

But, Parliamentary Committees attached with the Petroleum Ministry have also lamented that the ONGC has failed to increase domestic oil production over the years, resulting in high import bill.

The officials said despite protest by the ministry, Mr Raha had continued with non-core business activities, resulting in latter’s refusal for his extension after his first five-year term that expired in May.

“The government wants the ONGC to focus entirely on exploration and production both at home and overseas, leaving midstream and downstream activities solely in the hands of other state companies, such as Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Gail India,” an oil ministry official said.

To convert the ONGC into India’s biggest energy conglomerate within the next five years, Mr Raha envisaged E&P, refining, petrochemicals, LNG import terminals, power generation and energy transportation as the main focus areas.

The ONGC’s explanation that it spends 93 per cent of its resources on exploration and production and claims that its current seismic data acquisition and deep-water campaigns are the biggest of its kind in the world, failed to convince the ministry.

Chandigarh, July 17
With an astounding 57.71 lakh subscriber base, Punjab Telecom Circle has surpassed the metro circles in the country in terms of growth in mobile telephony. Though graded as a 'B' category telecom circle, the mobile users here are now higher than in 'A' category telecom circles of Chennai (33.25 lakh) and Kolkata (36.55 lakh).

According to figures made available by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Association of Basic Telephone Operators, as on June 30, 2006, Punjab Circle has 47.13 lakh GSM mobile users and 10.58 lakh CDMA mobile users.

While Airtel has emerged as the market leader, with a subscriber base of 20.20 lakh, followed by Spice (15.65 lakh), the telecom behemoth BSNL has lost over 55,000 subscribers in the past one year. Hutch has a base of 7.42 lakh subscribers, while CDMA providers Reliance and Tata have a subscriber base of 5 lakh and 2.95 lakh, respectively.

From a subscriber base of 4.83 lakh in July 2005, BSNL subscribers have dwindled to 3.83 lakh now.

Though BSNL has the second largest subscriber base in the country, it has been losing its subscribers to private telecom players like Bharti, Spice and Hutch in the Punjab Circle.

Punjab is the only 'B' category circle, where BSNL has been unable to hold on to its subscriber base. Though the telecom major is doing well in the other B circles like Haryana, Rajasthan, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, it has the lowest number of subscribers in Punjab. This inspite of the fact that Punjab has the highest teledensity in the country.

Senior officers of BSNL, Punjab Circle, informed TNS that in order to stem the further eroding of its subscriber base they had introduced competitive tariffs and proposed to remove glitches in distribution network by building infrastructure and work on its brand image.

The private telecom companies are upbeat about future growth. Mr Rajiv Jaitly, CEO (Mobility), Airtel, said," There is a tremendous potential in Punjab. Airtel now covers all towns of Punjab and close to 6,400 villages, supported by a distribution reach through 26,000 retail outlets". 

New Delhi, July 17
Undeterred by the bear phase in the market, India’s largest insurer LIC said it would invest up to Rs 10,000 crore in the stock market this fiscal.

“We are likely to invest Rs 9,000-10,000 crore in equities in 2006-07,” LIC Executive Director A.K. Dasgupta said.

He said LIC mostly invested in blue-chip companies, which were supposed to be safe bets. Asked whether the company was concerned with the recent volatility in the stock markets, he said: “We feel that there are strong fundamentals associated with the market and it will stabilise at good level in the coming times.” LIC, which puts up to 10 per cent of funds that it could invest in equities, was a net buyer during the market crash that started in May.

After launching a unit-linked scheme this month in accordance with the new guidelines, LIC plans to introduce two new products in the next two months.

“We are likely to launch a Unit-Linked Insurance Plan in August and a conventional product in September,” LIC North Zone manager Ashok Shah said.

LIC’s promotional campaign ‘LIC Zindagi Express’, an exhibition on rail, concluded today in Delhi after travelling all over the country. — PTI

New Delhi, July 17
Sensing the huge opportunity in India in mobile telephony, Samsung has announced an investment of $200 million to increase mobile handset manufacturing capacity to 20 million by 2010 from one million now.

The company also said that it would soon launch the world’s slimmest mobile phone to add another model to its existing high-end range.

“Samsung started manufacturing mobile phones at its unit in Manesar in Haryana about five months back with an initial capacity of one million. We have six models right now and soon it will be increased to 15 but most of them will be in the mid or high-end segment,” Mr S. Nathani, Vice- President, Sales and Marketing, Samsung India, said.

Asked whether the company was also having tie-ups with service providers to manufacture phones, Mr Nathani said the company did have such a tie-up, but only for mid and high-end phones.

“Extreme low-end or entry- level phones are not Samsung’s focus. World ide we have been manufacturing only mid and high-end phones,” he said.

Samsung was also exporting mobile phones from the Manesar plant to six countries - Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.

Currently, Samsung manufactured GSM phones only but had the technology in place for CDMA phones. Nearly 75 per cent of Samsung’s sales in India came from the GSM category, while the rest came from CDMA-based phones, Mr Nathani said.

The company was currently ranked number three (in unit sales) after Nokia and Motorola, he claimed, adding that the company aimed at re-occupying the number two position in a year. — PTI

New Delhi, July 17
Betting big on India, Cobra Beer Ltd today said it would invest “several million dollars” in the country out of the £27.5 million it had raised to fund expansion, which includes completion of a greenfield facility in Hyderabad.

The company, promoted by Mr Karan Bilimoria, has also sealed licensing agreements with three breweries in India, which would take its total beer brewing capacity to 4 million cases a year.

“India is an absolutely crucial market for us and we expect a significant proportion of the £27.5 million that we raised to be invested there. It could run into several millions of dollars,” Cobra Beer Chief Executive Karan Bilimoria said.

Asked about its new brewery partners in India, he declined to disclose the details and said, “We will soon make an announcement but these are licensing agreements with companies located at different regions.” He said the company expected to commence work on its greenfield facility in Hyderabad by next year.

“We expect the facility to be up and running in the next two years time with an initial capacity of one million cases,” he said.

Bullish on the Indian market, Mr Bilimoria said Cobra expected beer volumes in the country to overtake that of the UK in another five years time.

“Considering the way the Indian beer market is growing I would not be surprised if the volumes there overtake our sales in the UK in five years time,” he said, adding that currently Cobra sells about three million cases a year.

He also said the company would soon launch its strong beer and double fermented beer, King Cobra, in India although it expects the premium beer category to be the main growth driver in the long run.

Cobra Beer is at present brewed for the local market under licence by Mount Shivalik, a large independent brewer operating principally in Rajasthan. — PTI 

Mumbai, July 17
The rupee today tumbled to a new record closing low of Rs 46.75/76 against the US currency, pulled down by fresh negative developments amid very strong dollar overseas with the outlook extremely uncertain owing to the rising crude prices and a slowdown in FII inflows.

Resuming extremely weak by more than 10 paise from last weekend’s closing of Rs 46.3650/3750 per dollar, the rupee came under severe pressure in latter part of the day, fuelled by the news of an earthquake in the Indian Ocean and a subsequent Tsunami warning for Indonesia and Australia.

The dollar rallied against most currencies in global markets as it became more attractive amid heightened geopolitical risks and investors reportedly digested the Bank of Japan’s first interest rate hike in five years.

Citing the earthquake and Tsunami warning as the prime factor for the rupee’s dramatic fall to an all-time low, forex dealers said there was limited dollar demand from oil companies in anticipation of higher import payment.

After a weak start, the rupee value was gradually eroded further and ended at the record low of Rs 46.75/76 a dollar in the absence of central bank’s intervention to arrest the fall.

The rupee had last ended at its lowest levels of Rs 46.57 a dollar three year ago, a dealer from a leading bank said.

The world crude oil prices were hovering around its record high of $78 per barrel as violence continued to rage in West Asia amid concerns about a wider conflict. 
— PTI 

Kochi, July 17
Hyderabad-based Andhra Bank is planning to open representative offices in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman to tap NRI customers in West Asia, bank Chairman and Managing Director K. Ramakrishnan said here.

The 80-year-old bank opened an office in Dubai two months ago, its first foray abroad.

The aim is to speed up remittances from NRIs to families back home and to strategically spread in West Asia where a large number of NRIs from Andhra Pradesh and Kerala are working.— PTI

New Delhi, July 17
GMR Infrastructure, which bagged the contract for the modernisation of Delhi airport, has revived its IPO plans and would hit the market by month-end to raise up to Rs 1,100 crore. The offering would be the first major IPO since that of Reliance Petroleum on May 11, which helped the Mukesh Ambani group company mop up Rs 2,700 crore.

GMR, the power and infrastructure major, was previously expected to launch its public issue last month but is now likely to hit the capital market by the end of July or early August with a public issue of more than Rs 1,000 crore, sources said.

The company is also likely to offer a discount of 5 per cent to retail investors on the price discovered from the book-building process. The company is expected to offer its shares to the public in a price range of Rs 225-260 per share. — PTI

Mumbai, July 17
Titan Industries Ltd today reported a 18.52 per cent dip in net profit at Rs 4.09 crore for the quarter ended June 30 as compared to Rs 5.02 crore for the corresponding quarter in 2005-06.