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India's top oil and gas producer ONGC has seen a drop in natural gas production from aging fields that supply CNG and piped cooking gas, resulting in supply reductions for city gas distributors like IGL, MGL, and Adani-Total, officials said. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is offsetting the natural decline in output from ageing gas fields by drilling new wells. However, gas from these new wells is sold at a higher price to cover the added costs, officials said. Natural gas extracted from the ground and seabed is converted into CNG for vehicles and used as cooking fuel when piped to households. Gas from fields allocated to ONGC on a nomination basis is priced by the government and referred to as APM gas. This APM gas serves as the feedstock for city gas distributors. APM gas is priced at 10 per cent of the monthly average rate of the crude oil basket India imports for its energy needs. However, the price is capped with a floor of USD 4 per million British thermal units and a .
The government has increased cheaper gas supply to city gas retailers IGL, Adani-Total, and Mahanagar Gas, restoring a major part of the allocation that was cut in 2024, according to regulatory filings by the companies. The government, in October and November last year, had cut supplies of the so-called APM Gas (low-priced natural gas coming from old fields such as Mumbai High and Bassein fields in the Bay of Bengal) to city gas retailers by as much as 40 per cent in view of limited output. This led to city gas retailers hiking CNG prices by Rs 2-3 per kg and planning more increases as they replaced lost volumes with higher-priced input fuel. The price hike made CNG less attractive when compared to alternate fuels like diesel. Following this, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in a December 31, 2024 order rejigged some allocations of gas produced from below ground and undersea. The ministry ordered a cut in gas supplied to state-owned GAIL and Oil and Natural Gas Corporatio
European Union candidate Serbia will continue to refuse to impose sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine despite Western pressure, Serbia's leader said after his telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday. Populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Instagram that he believes the call, what he said was his first in more than two years with the Russian president, will help further development of relations and trust between Russia and Serbia. We talked as people who have known each other for a long time, as friends, and the ten-minute conversation was marked by a personal note, and we also talked about those who are weak (pro-Western) leaders, Vucic said. Vucic quoted Putin as saying what is good for Serbia is also good for Russia, what is good for the Serbs is also good for the Russians. Vucic did not say whether he would accept an earlier invitation by Putin to attend a BRICS summit of emerging economies, led by Russia and China, i
The government headhunter PESB has rejected all candidates it interviewed for the top job at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), the third instance in as many years that the board has not found any suitable candidate for the role in a state oil firm. The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) on June 14 interviewed eight candidates, including a director on the HPCL board and managing director of Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL), but rejected them all. "The Board did not recommend any candidate for the post of chairman and managing director (CMD) HPCL and advised the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas to choose an appropriate course of further action for selection, including the Search-Cum-Selection Committee (SCSC) or as deemed appropriate with the approval of the competent authority," the PESB panel said in a notification. The HPCL CMD post will fall vacant on September 1, 2024, when the incumbent Pushp Kumar Joshi retires on attaining a superannuation age of 60 years. The .
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is seeking help from an internationally-proven technical service provider to raise oil and gas production from its flagship but old and maturing Mumbai field in the Arabian Sea. The firm has floated an international tender to identify the service provider who will help raise production from the field, ONGC said in a post on X. "The giant multi-layered Mumbai High field, which commenced production 48 years ago in 1976, is currently in its mature stage of production and ONGC has implemented a number of schemes in this field to improve production," it said. "As a custodian and operator of Mumbai High field, ONGC is keen to collaborate with a global technical service provider. The service provider would be contracted for 10 years, extendable by another five years." Mumbai High field lies 160 kilometres off the coast of Mumbai and produces about 38 per cent of India's oil production. While it hit a peak output of 40,000 barrels per day