Oil Ministry to cover state oil company losses

The Indian government will protect state-run oil companies from the losses they suffer due to selling products at a discount, Indian Oil Minister Murali Deora said. “On the pricing of the sensitive petroleum products, I can assure you that the financial health of the public-sector oil companies will be protected by the government,” Deora said in a statement. State-run oil marketing companies, Indian Oil Corp. Ltd., Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd., as well as Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd., Oil India Ltd. and GAIL (India) Ltd. share revenue losses for selling oil products at a discount to the public, as mandated by the government. For the last fiscal year, the Indian government took the burden of the state-run oil companies’ under-recoveries and issued oil bonds worth Rs712.92 billion (US$14.68 billion), while state-run upstream oil companies contributed Rs320 billion (US$6.6 billion) in price discounts, the minister said. (June 27, 2009)