Washington: A top India-centric American business advocacy group has suggested Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to lower tariff in the Union Budget if the country wants to compete with China-backed mega free trade agreement Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).   China and 14 other countries in November last year established the world’s largest trading bloc…

  New Delhi: State-run Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) has inked a pact with Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA) for implementation of Energy Efficient PNG Cook Stove (EEPS) programme, across India. The EESL, a joint venture of PSUs under the Ministry of Power, Government of India, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with PCRA,…

  State run oil and gas explorer ONGC’s plan to merge its refining subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) with Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) has got delayed. The process is now expected to be complete by FY24. The merger was in the works with the aim of aligning ONGC’s upstream and downstream operations…

  India on Friday said all member states of the United Nations, including those lying beyond the tropics, can now join the International Solar Alliance (ISA) with an amendment to its framework agreement coming into effect recently.   In pursuance of the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for achieving the universalisation of the membership…

  Energy and land connectivity, including the construction of a second fuel pipeline, were among key topics discussed by the foreign ministers of India and Nepal on Friday at their sixth Joint Commission meeting.   External affairs minister S. Jaishankar and Nepalese counterpart Pradeep Kumar Gyawali also exchanged views on railway connectivity between the two…

  New Delhi: Shri Dharmendra Pradhan deeply appreciates the efforts of our Ambassador in Israel Sanjeev Singla for following up on the MoU between IOCL and Phinergy, an Israeli startup company, signed in July 2017 during the visit of Hon’ble PM Shri Narendra Modi to Israel to collaborate in new clean energy technologies.   He…

  New Delhi: The government proposes to appoint independent operators of gas pipelines in the country to operationalise the common carrier principle that will allow all consumers and producers access to fuel transport infrastructure. Petroleum Secretary Tarun Kapoor told IANS that the ministry was taking approvals for segregating the existing gas pipeline infrastructure to identify…

  Domestic natural gas production fell 11.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 27,642 million metric standard cubic metre (mmscm) in 2020 as operations became increasingly unviable for energy production companies with government lowering selling prices. The 2,426 mmscm of natural gas produced in December was however the highest monthly output recorded in the ongoing fiscal, with the…

Saudi Arabia has hinted in a recent public discourse that it will cut down oil production in February 2021 to stabilise market prices. This is a unilateral action in an otherwise tense geo-political scenario, where Russia and Kazakhstan have declared they will increase their output, in a reluctance to cede market share to the United…

  SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI: Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia has cut supplies of February-loading crude for at least three Asian buyers while meeting requirements of at least four others, several refinery and trade sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.   This comes after Saudi Arabia pledged additional voluntary output cuts of 1 million…