Govt to issue BPCL EoI in next few days

The government will come out with the expression of Interest (EoI) inviting bidders for privatisation of BPCL within few days, a senior official said on Sunday.

The Cabinet in November had cleared strategic sale of oil marketing and refining firm Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL). The government currently holds 53.29 per cent stake in the company, and at prevailing market prices the share sale would fetch about Rs 60,000 crore to the government.

The Investor roadshows for BPCL sale was conducted in December in the US, London and Dubai.

"We have got quite a good response (BPCL roadshow). We will come out with EoI very soon and then investors can engage with us through the formal process. The BPCL EoI will be issued within few days," DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.

The proceeds from BPCL stake sale will accrue to the government in the next fiscal beginning April 1.

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) has been set a huge target of Rs 1.20 lakh crore to be mopped up through CPSE stake sale in next fiscal. Another Rs 90,000 crore is to come from sale of government equity in banks and financial institutions.

In the current fiscal, the government has missed its budgeted disinvestment target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore by a huge margin. The revised estimates (RE) has pegged the disinvestment target at Rs 65,000 crore.

Of this, the government has mopped up Rs 35,000 crore from disinvestment, including from two tranches of CPSE ETF, so far.

"We have Rs 35,000 crore. Rest of it we will do strategic disinvestment, then we have OFS, IPO, buy back. All put together we will have RE target through," Pandey said.

He said the government plans to come out with initial public offer of IRFC and complete strategic sale of THDCIL and NEEPCO in the current fiscal.

BPCL operates four refineries at Mumbai, Kochi, Bina in Madhya Pradesh and Numaligarh in Assam with a combined capacity to convert 38.3 million tonnes of crude oil into fuel.

It has 15,078 petrol pumps and 6,004 LPG distributors across the country.