MUMBAI (ICIS)–India is proposing to impose a 15% tax on all chemical and petrochemical imports, to protect the domestic industry in the current fiscal year ending March 2021 as the south Asian nation battles the coronavirus pandemic. Downstream end-users, however, have posed strong opposition to the measure dubbed as “covid (coronavirus disease) tax” – which Read more

Due to lower demand of petroleum products amid the lockdown to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus, India’s crude oil import is likely to fall by 8.9% in FY21, according to Care Ratings. Since people are likely ‘to be sceptical to travel anywhere any time soon post the lockdown period’, analysts pointed out that consumption Read more

It’s going to take months for oil demand in the world’s third biggest market to get back to pre-virus levels as India faces its deepest recession ever in the wake of its near two-month lockdown. Once the engine of global oil demand growth, India’s fuel consumption collapsed by as much as 70% at one stage Read more

NEW DELHI: Saudi Arabia replaced Iraq as the top oil supplier to India in April after a gap of three months as refiners in Asia’s third largest economy were drawn by deep discounts on Saudi crudes, data obtained from sources showed. Refiners in India, the third largest oil importer, requested higher volumes for April from Read more

LONDON: Oil prices rose slightly on Tuesday amid signs that producers are cutting output as promised just as demand picks up, stoked by more countries easing out of curbs imposed to counter the coronavirus pandemic. Benchmark Brent crude climbed 7 cents, or 0.2 per cent, to $34.88 a barrel by 0907 GMT, after earlier touching Read more

NEW YORK – U.S. crude ended slightly higher on Tuesday, as U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he supported extending certain measures intended to bolster the economy, while Brent ended lower on concerns that output cuts might not be sufficient. Oil has rallied for several days following numerous output cuts from major producers to curb Read more

LONDON: Global demand for natural gas is expected to fall by almost 2 per cent this year as commercial and industrial activity is reduced amid coronavirus lockdowns, consultancy Rystad Energy said on Monday. Global gas demand could total 3,878 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2020, down from 3,951 bcm last year, the consultancy forecast. Before Read more

JODIDUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports in March rose by 113,000 barrels per day (bpd)to 7.391 million barrels per day from 7.278 million bpd in February, official data showed on Monday. Saudi Arabia built up its crude stocks in March by more than 3.5 million barrels to 2,964 million barrels from minus 0.683 million barrels Read more

LONDON, Saudi Arabia and its allies in the expanded OPEC+ group of oil-exporting nations have successfully engineered a prospective deficit in the oil market, boosting spot prices and calendar spreads over the last four weeks. Front-month Brent futures prices have risen by more than $15 per barrel (80%) since the second trimester of April, while Read more

Google says it will no longer build custom artificial intelligence tools for speeding up oil and gas extraction, separating itself from cloud computing rivals Microsoft and Amazon. The announcement followed a Greenpeace report Tuesday that documents how the three tech giants are using AI and computing power to help oil companies find and access oil Read more

LONDON – Exxon Mobil has relaunched the sale of its stake in Azerbaijan’s largest oilfield, the company said on Tuesday, as banking and industry sources said the move was drawing interest from large Asian oil and gas companies seeking to capitalize on the recent collapse in oil prices. The top U.S. oil and gas company Read more

Singapore — State-run Indian Oil Corp. is working on a long-term energy transition strategy, which would involve producing hydrogen in a cost-effective way as well as developing technology to combine compressed natural gas with hydrogen, its chairman Sanjiv Singh told S&P Global Platts in an interview. In addition to refining and fertilizers, hydrogen provides a Read more

While announcing economic reforms in the light of Covid-19 imapct on businesses and Governance, India’s Finance Minister has made a big announcement: Every PSU in India will be now privatized, except 4 in strategic sectors. Is this India’s biggest privatization drive? In a big decision, Govt has now announced that all PSUs in non-strategic sectors Read more

Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said oil prices will “bounce back” sometime in the near future. “People will be not be affected,” Pradhan said, adding that the government will have to save some money. Speaking to News18, Pradhan said the government has not hiked retail prices during the COVID-19 outbreak. On May 5, excise duty on Read more

Mumbai: There are eight states, with high concentration of red zones, which account for 60% of the country’s GDP and 58% of the workforce at the end of the third phase of the lockdown. This could prove to be a major challenge for reviving economic activity. Three states — Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat — Read more