Allcargo currently specializes in moving bulk, break bulk, containerized and project cargo under its coastal shipping business. C H Unni reportsAllcargo Logistics, India's largest private sector logistics company, said on Thursday (13 August) that it has acquired two additional vessels aggregating 24,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT), for its coastal shipping business. Post this acquisition Allcargo now owns a total of five cargo vessels making it one of the largest players in the logistics industry. The additional vessels will help Allcargo to cater to the growing requirements not only of coastal shipping but regional trade and commerce as well, the company said. Expansion of coastal shipping services is a strategic move by Allcargo as the country has over 7,000 km of coastline. Considering India's demography and strategic location as a global trade hub, the coastline will play a major role in coastal shipping services which lead to efficient, cost effective and time saving mode of cargo transport. With the government increasing its focus on decongesting the exiting road and rail network, coastal shipping will play a pivotal role in India’s growing economy. “As an organisation, we believe that India’s economy will need a more efficient and time saving mode of transportation, to keep pace with its growth," said Allcargo founder and chairman Shashi Kiran Shetty. "Coastal shipping is the solution for this opportunity. We are helping our customers to create logistics solutions through coastal shipping, making their cargo movement more seamless and cost effective,” he added. Allcargo currently specializes in moving bulk, break bulk, containerized and project cargo under its coastal shipping business. With many companies realizing the benefits of cargo movement through coastal route, Allcargo is well placed to lead the space and provide best in class services. Allcargo is also a leader in CFS and ICD operations pan India with six facilities as well as a leader in the project logistics and equipment hiring space.
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From now onwards, government will put in place a warranty clause in renewable energy projects to ensure that the infrastructure is maintained and repaired to ensure functionality, the Lok Sabha was informed today.Replying to questions, Power Minister Piyush Goyal said governments in the past had not given importance to the aspect of warranty but but the present regime will put in place a clause of five-year warranty for maintenance and repair of infrastructure of renewable energy projects.He said the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is implementing important programmes such as the national biogas and manure management programme, unnat chulha programme, bio gas (off grid) generation programme, biomass gasifiers programme and remote village electrification programme.It is also disseminating solar lights and solar cookers for meeting cooking, heating and power needs in the remote and rural areas of the country.(PTI)
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Private power producer Tata Power on Thursday (13 August) reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 241.33 crore for the quarter ended June 30, helped by higher revenues. The company had reported a net loss of Rs 111.30 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal, Tata Power said in a regulatory filing. The total income from operations during the quarter was at Rs 9,234.58 crore, an increase of 6.05 per cent. The total income from operations in the year-ago period was Rs 8,707.53 crore. The company's other operating income (net of excise duty) during the quarter increased over four-fold to Rs 123.08 crore as against Rs 28.75 crore in the year-ago period. Commenting on the Company’s performance, Anil Sardana, CEO & Managing Director, Tata Power said, “Tata Power continues to report improved operational performance and has consistently maintained strong performance across its various businesses. Most of the projects and subsidiaries of the Company continue to perform well despite very challenging circumstances. With an operating base of 8669 megawatts as of June 30, 2015, the Company’s distribution business has crossed 2 million connected customers, 14 lacs in Delhi and 6 lacs in Mumbai, reinforcing its position as India’s largest integrated power company. As we celebrate Tata Power’s centenary year, we are committed to nation building and providing sustainable power to all.” Tata Power's revenue from the power business increased to Rs 6,802.99 crore as compared to Rs 6,568.38 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. It further said that in the case of Coastal Gujarat Power Ltd (CGPL), a wholly-owned arm of the company, the Supreme Court has stayed the orders passed by CERC and APTEL granting compensatory tariff. The company, it said, has been legally advised that it has a good arguable case. It said that CGPL has reviewed and reassessed the recoverability of the carrying amount of its assets at Mundra and has concluded that no further provision for impairment as at June 30, 2015 is necessary. "In view of the estimation uncertainties, the assumptions will be monitored on a periodic basis by the management and adjustments will be made if conditions relating to the assumptions indicate that such adjustments are appropriate. Certain financial covenants in respect of loans taken by CGPL had not been met," it said. The management has requested lenders to extend the existing waivers. "Accordingly, the long-term loans continue to be classified as long-term loans," it said. Shares of the company today closed at Rs 69.20 per scrip, up 2.44 per cent.
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State explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp reported a 14 per cent jump in quarterly net profit, as it significantly cut discounts on crude oil to refiners after global oil prices fell.Net income for the company's fiscal first quarter ended June 30 rose to 54.59 billion rupees ($839.59 million) from 47.82 billion rupees a year earlier.Upstream state companies such as ONGC and Oil India typically sell crude oil at discounted rates to partly compensate retailers for losses they incur on selling fuels such as gasoline and cooking gas (LPG) at government-set rates.The impact of the discounts on profit after tax was 6.28 billion rupees during the quarter, compared with 73.96 billion rupees in the year-ago quarter.Net sales for the quarter rose 4.4 per cent to Rs 226.96 billion.($1 = 65.0200 rupees)(Reuters)
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India's top state-owned refiner Indian Oil Corp could pay a part of its oil import dues to Iran as early as this month, a senior company executive said on Thursday (13 August).Indian refiners had got approval to pay Iran $1.4 billion in oil dues, Reuters reported earlier, in one of the first signs a nuclear deal with six major world powers is helping Tehran unlock frozen funds.The company's finance director A.K. Sharma told reporters that while there was no immediate timeline for the payment, a partial payment could be possible this month.Indian Oil has still to pay around $500 million to Iran, Sharma said.India, the world's fourth-largest oil consumer, has run up a $6.5 billion bill for Iranian oil that it has been largely unable to pay because banking channels were blocked by Western financial sanctions.(Reuters)
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Iran has said the development rights for its Farzad-B gas field will be available to Indian companies after concerns in New Delhi that cash-rich European firms could clinch the contract. A consortium headed by ONGC Videsh, the overseas investment arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corp, in 2008 discovered the Farzad-B gas field in the Farsi offshore block. The consortium, which also include Oil India and Indian Oil Corp, has been seeking development rights for the field. An Indian delegation that went to Iran in the last week of July was told Tehran was working out a new production sharing contract, said B. Roy, head of business development at Oil India Ltd.. "The outlook is upbeat," he said. Iran has asked Indian firms to submit a development plan for the Farzad-B gas field, Roy said, adding Tehran had offered a draft contract, known as the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC), to Indian companies. The new contract for the block is a mix of production sharing and service contract, he said. The delegation also renewed talks over the purchase of Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG) once sanctions against the country are lifted and Tehran sets up a liquefaction facility, Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told lawmakers on Wednesday. India signed a deal with Iran in 2005 to buy 5 million tonnes a year of LNG but the contract was never implemented. Separately, Oil India said the first delivery of LNG cargo from Mozambique's offshore Area 1 Block in the Rovuma basis was expected in the first quarter of 2020. "There is a delay of 7-8 months in LNG supplies from Mozambique, as their parliament only recently passed the law supporting development of (an) LNG hub," Roy said. He said Mozambique's Area 1-operator Anadarko Petroleum had signed initial deals with Japan, South Korea and Singapore-based entities to sell 60 percent of the gas to be produced from the phase 1 of the project. Reuters last month reported that Anadarko was in talks with Japanese joint-venture vehicle Jera, set to become the world's biggest buyer of LNG, to sell long-term supply from its Mozambique export scheme. Roy said banks had committed $16 billion for the project that would cost about $23 billion. "The financial closure for the project is expected by the end of this year or early next year," he said. The project also include setting up two LNG trains of an annual capacity of 6 million tonnes each. (Reuters)
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The government has hired five banks to manage a stake sale valued at up to $1.5 billion in state-run Indian Oil Corp, IFR reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the deal. The government tapped Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JM Financial, Kotak and Nomura to handle the sale of a 10 percent stake in the oil company, which at current market prices would be worth up to 95 billion rupees, added IFR, a Thomson Reuters publication. Indian Oil didn't immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the share sale. New Delhi is seeking to raise as much as $11 billion by selling stakes in state-run companies this fiscal year, crucial to narrowing the fiscal deficit to a planned 3.9 percent of gross domestic product in 2015/16. The government is aiming to sell a 10 per cent stake valued at around $3.7 billion in top coal miner Coal India Ltd through a stock market auction. The government, which owns 78.65 per cent of Coal India, has sought bids from banks by Sept. 2 to manage the share offering, according to a notice issued by the Department of Disinvestment, which oversees stake sales in state companies.
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Government will "any day" announce a decision to allow market price for part of gas discoveries made in future from difficult fields, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Monday (10 August). While approving a new gas pricing formula based on international hub rates in October last year, the government had decided that new gas discoveries in deep-water, ultra-deep sea or high-temperature and high-pressure fields will be given a premium over and above the approved price. "There is now an in-principle agreement over the issue of gas price premium between the ministry of petroleum and natural gas and the ministry of finance. It's resolved and it will come any day," he told reporters here. Based on a recommendation from its upstream technical arm, the ministry proposed to allow a fixed percentage of natural gas produced from difficult fields to be sold at market price and the remaining as per the approved price. The ministry had sent the gas price premium proposal to the Finance Ministry which had returned it, saying the Petroleum Ministry should decide on the issue on its own keeping in mind the October 2014 decision of Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. The Oil Ministry subsequently resubmitted the proposal to the Finance Ministry, saying CCEA had in October specifically directed that the gas price premium should be jointly decided by the two ministries based on recommendation of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). Pradhan, who had recently met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on the issue, said all issues are settled and an announcement of the gas price premium can be made any day. "It can be done any day, even today," he said. While the domestic gas is priced at $4.66 per million British thermal unit, the market price as measured by the rate at which the fuel is imported is $7-8. The percentage of total volumes that can be sold at market price will be different for ultra-deep sea discoveries, deep-sea finds and high-temperature and high-pressure (HTHP) fields. All gas producers, including state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), have stated that it was uneconomical to produce gas from difficult fields at the current price of $4.66 per mmBtu. As per the mechanism approved in October 2014, price of domestically produced natural gas is to be revised every six months using weighted average or rates prevalent in gas-surplus economies of the US/Mexico, Canada and Russia. Gas price, according to the formula, was $5.05 per mmBtu till March 31 and has subsequently been cut to $4.66, in line with international movements. The current price is among the lowest in the Asia-Pacific. China pays explorers $11.9 per mmBtu rate for new projects while Indonesia and the Philippines price the fuel at $11 and $10.5, respectively. Gas from offshore fields in Myanmar, where Indian firms ONGC and GAIL have a stake, is sold to China for $7.72. Thailand prices gas from new projects at $8.2 per mmBtu. Vietnam has a gas price of $5.2 and Malaysia $5.(PTI)
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