Why Indian refineries continue to attract investors with deep pockets

As demand for oil is shooting up to keep pace with GDP growth, picking up a stake in an existing or planned oil refinery is a lazy but effective bet

Today morning, the finance and petroleum ministries will open the bids for oil and gas exploration blocks under the Open Acerage Licensing Policy (OALP). Officials are hopeful the bids, coming after a lot of tweaks in the policy, will show up some interesting offers.

But the big news this morning is a reported offer by Kuwait Petroleum International to buy a 24 per cent stake in Bina refinery, a 50:50 joint venture between state-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Oman Oil Co. Last month, Saudi Aramco announced it plans to invest 50 per cent in a Rs 3 trillion