The Indian government is reported to be considering mergers of state-owned oil and gas companies to create two integrated giants.
Official discussion about consolidation of some or all of India’s oil and gas “public-sector undertakings” (PSUs) surfaced earlier this year in government budget presentations (OGJ Online, Feb. 2, 2017).
Since then, the cabinet has been reported to be preparing to sell the state share of refiner-marketer Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. to Oil & Natural Gas Corp., the largest upstream PSU.
HPCL operates a 130,000-b/d refinery in Mumbai and a 167,000-b/d refinery at Visakhapatnam. It also is a partner in a 181,000-b/d joint-venture refinery at Bathinda.
More recently, discussion has begun of a merger of Oil India Ltd., the country’s second-largest upstream PSU, and Indian Oil Corp. Ltd., the largest state-owned refiner-marketer.
IOCL controls 1.6 million b/d of distillation capacity in nine refineries and two refineries operated by subsidiaries.
There has been no official confirmation of the possible OIL-IOCL merger.
