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Diesel may cost Rs 57 for industrial users
Infosys to acquire Axon for Rs 3,310 cr
ONGC’s Assam project to see revised cost estimate
Norsk Hydro keen on 30 pc stake in ONGC block
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Tatas may launch Jaguar, Land Rover in India
Mobile user base swells to 296 m
Rupee loses 36 paise
Essar Steel goes green
Scheduled drugs set to cost more
Sotheby’s puts Delhi on art map
MCX gets nod for currency futures trading
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Diesel may cost Rs 57 for industrial users
New Delhi, August 25 Three oil companies have submitted a concept paper to the petroleum ministry for differential pricing of diesel for direct consumers like Railways and power producers who they want to charge market price and limit subsidised sales to transport and agriculture sectors, official sources said. Industrial units like power generators find subsidised diesel cheaper than freely priced fuel oil and naphtha, pushing demand that has forced refiners import the fuel to meet the requirement. Last week, an industry brainstorming meeting with oil minister Murli Deora was informed that diesel demand in April-July had grown by 18 per cent, with bulk of the growth coming from industrial users like power plants. Sources said the power sector had seen a whopping 152 per cent rise in demand in the first quarter to 53,000 tons, while fisheries and marine sector had seen a near-40 per cent growth. Differential pricing of diesel would reduce the revenue loss by Rs 27,202 crore in 2008-09. Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum currently lose Rs 16.22 per litre on diesel sales. Half of the projected Rs 184,801 crore revenue loss on sale of petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene in fiscal 2009 is because of diesel. Sources said, the petroleum ministry was examining the proposal and it was being deliberated if Cabinet approval would be required for implementing differential pricing scheme. "During the first four months, diesel demand has grown at 18 per cent," IOC chairman Sarthak Behuria had said last week. This unprecedented demand growth has seen domestic output fall short of the requirement and a total of 4.14 million tons of diesel may be required to be imported in 2008-09. Of this 1.267 million tons has been imported in April-July. Behuria said, while transport and agriculture demand for diesel had grown by 10-12 per cent, consumption by power producers and other industries had risen 30 per cent. — PTI |
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Infosys to acquire Axon for Rs 3,310 cr
Bangalore, August 25 The transfer of 100 per cent ownership is expected to be completed by November this year, officials of the Nasdaq-listed, Bangalore-headquartered IT major told reporters here. Infosys offered 600 pence a share, including any interim dividend declared by the board of Axon, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The offer price is 33.1 per cent premium to six months average price of £4.51; and 19.4 per cent premium to the closing price of £5.025 on August 22, the last business day prior to the acquisition announcement. For the year ended December 31, 2007, Axon reported profit after tax of £20.2 million on revenue of £204.5 million. "We are excited about this acquisition," Infosys CEO S Gopalakrishnan said. "The strategic combination of our groups will accelerate the realisation of our common aspiration — that of becoming the most respected provider of
business transformational services in the global marketplace," he added. —
PTI |
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ONGC’s Assam project to see revised cost estimate
New Delhi, August 25 According to sources, since the bids received are of Rs 7,800 crore, which is much higher than the total estimate of the company, it will try to justify to the board and the executive purchase committee that a revised estimate be sanctioned. The sources say that costing of this project has always been unclear and every time the estimates were made, they were revised upwards though the justification given was high input costs. The project has been
divided in three parts, and, what is really surprising is that the bids that have been received are double the cost estimates of the company. Hyderabad-based Sairama Engineering Enterprises, in consortium with an irrigation equipment company Megha Engineering, was the lowest bidder for a slice of ONGC’s prestigious Assam Renewal project. Company officials say that this consortium was not a serious contender as compared to established names like Larsen and Toubro, Punj Lloyd, Oil India Ltd and others in the race. It is learnt that price bids for Group A ( Lakwa and Lakhmani fields) of the project were opened on August 12. Sairama was the lowest bidder, quoting Rs 2,384 crore, as compared to the ONGC’s estimate of Rs 2,000 crore. Punj Lloyd came second with a quotation of Rs 4,700 crore, Larsen and Toubro in alliance with Indian Oiltanking came third with a quote of Rs 5,100 crore. Price bids for Group B (Geleki fields) and Group C ( Rudrasagar and Jorhat fields) were opened on August 14. Punj Lloyd was the lowest bidder for the group B with a price bid of Rs 3,000 crore as compared to the ONGC’s estimate of Rs 1,500 crore. L&T also bid for this part with a bid of Rs 3,200 crore. For Group C, the bids of Rs 2,495 crore were received from Punj Lloyd and Rs 2,600 crore from L&T, as against the ONGC’s estimate of Rs 1,050 crore. Surprisingly, Sairama’s bids for Group B and C were
not opened as the financial capability of the company were considered inadequate for the
additional bids. Another surprising fact is that Sairama’s, which has won the bid, does not have any financial standing. Megha Engineering, which is into turnkey irrigation contracts, had a turnover of Rs 50 crore in 2005 and in 2007,
the turnover jumped to Rs 1,100 crore. It has been learnt that Sairama’s office in Hyderabad is located in a residential area and is owned by Dorriah, who is
also a vice-president of Megha Engineering. In addition to this, sources in Megha Engineering’s office say that Sairama is a personal outfit of Dorriah. Megha Engineering on its part is an irrigation equipment-making company and does not have any work experience of carrying out oil projects. |
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Norsk Hydro keen on 30 pc stake in ONGC block
New Delhi, August 25 The Norwegian company, which has already taken a 10 per cent stake in the KG-DWN-98/2 block, has the right to double its interests before the gas discoveries are put to production but it is now keen on operatorship and a higher stake in the block, company sources
said. ONGC is in dire need of deep water production technology and is likely to agree for a joint operatorship of the block but |
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Tatas may launch Jaguar, Land Rover in India
New Delhi, August 25 "Land Rovers are present in small numbers in Mumbai currently. Our colleagues at JLR (Jaguar-Land Rover) have chalked out plans for expansion in the country within a one-year time frame, which will be followed by the entry of Jaguar," Rajeev Dubey, president of passenger cars division of Tata Motors, told reporters here. Tatas had earlier in the year acquired Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motors in an all-cash deal worth $2.3 billion. The company also said after the launch of the new Indica, it would also be unveiling the next generation variant of Indigo and a crossover vehicle between the Safari and Sumo. “We will be unveiling the crossover Safari and Sumo, which was displayed in Auto Expo two years back,” Dubey said. “This will be followed by the next generation Indigo, probably on the same
platform as the Indica,” he said. Dubey, however, did not give any time frame. |
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Mobile user base swells to 296 m
New Delhi, August 25 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today released the figures which said that the total user base in the country now stands at 296.08 million. As has been the trend in the past few months, there was further decline in the wireline or fixed line connections which fell by another 0.16 million. It brought down the overall increase in telephone connections to 9.06 million in the month under review. The overall teledensity was 29.08 per cent in July 2008 as against 28.33 per cent in June. Though there has been an increase in the addition of wireless subscribers, fixed-line users continued to dwindle with the subscribers base declining to 38.76 million in July from 38.92 in June, 2008. The total number of telephone connections reached 334.84 million at the end of July 2008, as compared with 325.78 million in June 2008, the statement added. The total wireless subscribers GSM, CDMA and WLL(F), base stood at 296.08 million in July as against 286.86 in June, it noted. The broadband subscribers reached 4.57 million mark in July as compared with 4.38 million in June. Top mobile operator Bharti Airtel added about 2.67 million new customers. The company had 72.07 million mobile users at the end of July. Reliance Communications added about 1.74 million wireless users to have 52.53 million subscribers and Vodafone Essar added 1.75 million mobile customers in July, taking its total to 50.95 million. Meanwhile, there was good news from the rural sector of the country also. Over 92 percent rural connectivity has been provided by state-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has provided connections to about 54,700 villages through the Village Public Telephones (VPTs) mission under the Bharat Nirman Programme, which aims to provide subsidised public telephone facility in rural India, the department said. The scheme is being carried out as part of the agreement signed between DoT and BSNL in November 2004, and covers all villages except those having population of less than 100, or are located in deep forests, or are insurgency-hit, it said. |
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Rupee loses 36 paise
Mumbai, August 25 Late sell-off in equities , after initial firmness, and month-end dollar demand from oil corporates also aided the fall of the rupee. In fairly active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the local unit resumed slightly lower at 43.43/46 from Friday's level of 43.42/43 and fell sharply further to settle the day at 43.78/79 a dollar, a steep fall of 36 paise over the last close. After two-days of smart recovery, the rupee came under pressure from month-end dollar demand from oil refiners to meet their import requirements. They said strong dollar against the basket of
currencies in overseas markets and tight dollar supplies also weighed on the rupee sentiment. Lack of any intervention by the apex bank to
stem the sharp fall in the rupee, seen in last couple of days, also brought some pressure on the rupee. —
PTI |
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Essar Steel goes green
Hazira, August 25 This would not only help the firm to generate additional revenue but also ensure the adjoining plant area is free from pollution. "We have taken various measures to utilise plant waste effectively to achieve our goal of becoming a zero waste company. It is our endeavour, first by an Indian steel firm, to make the world class plant into a green plant," Essar Steel CEO Dilip Oommen told PTI. Essar Steel's 4.6 million tons per annum (mtpa) production at Hazira generates 20-24 per cent slag and less than one per cent steel dust, both being waste products. The company has developed technologies to use slag for manufacturing cement, vitrified tiles and build roads and steel dust for making bricks mixing it with rice husk. Other firms simply dump these wastes, he said. "We intend to seek patent for these two technologies and give it to entrepreneurs who could use them for commercial purposes," he said. — PTI |
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Scheduled drugs set to cost more
Chandigarh, August 25 Industry sources informed TNS that NPPA has allowed for an increase in the price of drugs by six to nine per cent last week. This was done after the prices of API had continued to soar since June, in the wake of China closing down several API manufacturing units near Beijing and Cianjin. But with API production resuming in China (in units earlier closed for operating without licences), there has been a moderation in price. It is learnt that two months ago, the API prices had started rising and increased by about 10-35 per cent (for different APIs). Another reason for the rise in price of APIs manufactured in China was the re-valuation of the yuan (Chinese currency against the dollar). But now, there has been a correction and prices are down by 5-15 per cent. Also, with the crude oil prices coming down from $140 a barrel earlier to $114 a barrel now, cost of petroleum-based APIs like paracetamol have come down. Though the drug manufacturers had been mainly seeking a hike in drug prices because of the massive hike in API, the pharma industry has also been hit by the inflation, with prices of packing material, freight charges and fuel costs having shot up. The secretary general of Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, Daara B. Patel, said all these factors had gone into the increased pricing of scheduled formulations (which are under price control), and they were unable to absorb the high input costs. However, a majority of the drugs are manufactured in tax-exempt states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and they fix their prices at will, without any tax deterrents on MRP. The drugs manufactured here are already being sold at a higher rate than drugs manufactured in the non tax- exempt states. “Now, they will further hike their prices and the common man will suffer,” said Jagdeep Singh, president of Punjab Drug Manufacturers Association. |
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Sotheby’s puts Delhi on art map
London, August 25 A step in this direction is Sotheby's putting up a pre-auction show of select works of famous artist and sculptor Damien Hirst at Delhi's Oberoi Hotel next Thursday. Next month's London auction of his works is already making waves after Hirst decided to offer 223 new works directly to the public, bypassing the artist's usual dealer and gallery. The works are estimated to be worth more than £65 million. Usually, highlights of prominent London sales are taken to traditional art market centres such as New York or Paris to stimulate overseas interest. Sotheby's said the number of Indian buyers at its auctions had doubled between 2004 and the end of last year, and that about one third of those buyers were new to the auction house. Fourteen works of Hirst will go on display in Delhi to attract new buyers from the Indian sub-continent. Oliver Barker, senior international specialist in contemporary art at Sotheby's, described the move as an "educational experience" for the auction house. He said interest in contemporary art in India had grown massively in recent years, largely thanks to the success of the country's own artists, such as Raqib Shaw and Subodh Gupta. A work by Shaw, "Garden of Earthly Delights III", sold for £2.7m last October, a record for any Indian work of art at auction. "Collectors in India are very much trying to find ways into western art," said Barker in the Financial Times. "In many ways, this is the most important exhibition by a non-Indian artist (Hirst) to be held in India." He said the works that were travelling to Delhi did not include Hirst's signature formaldehyde sculptures and had been selected to appeal to Indian tastes. They included his butterfly paintings, spin paintings, spot canvases and decorative pieces with diamonds. — IANS |
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MCX gets nod for currency futures trading
New Delhi, August 25 "MCX has received SEBI's in-principle approval for its subsidiary 'MCX Stock Exchange Ltd', which had applied for currency derivatives," MCX promoter Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) informed Bombay Stock Exchange. MCX Stock Exchange will commence membership enrolment from tomorrow, FTIL said. —
PTI |
Nectar Lifesciences Reebok plans 55 more stores Britannia hints at price hike S&P index for int'l investors |
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New Delhi, August 25
