Petrol will cost more soon

The Centre is seriously considering market-determined prices for petrol together with a significant reduction of customs and excise duties.

Petroleum ministry sources said that if the present excise duty of Rs 14.30 per litre is reduced by half, it would save the petroleum companies Rs 7.50 per litre. The price will then be hiked by just Rs 5. In 2002-03, soon after the administered price mechanism was discontinued, petrol was sold at market-determined prices. Petrol used to subsidise the price of diesel.

The NDA government then started to subsidise the cost of petrol. The oil companies now want petrol again to be sold at market prices.

Kuwait Petro in talks with RIL, IOC for oil refinery

Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) is in talks with Reliance Industries Ltd and state-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) for setting up a multi-billiondollar "world-scale" oil refinery and petrochemical complex in India. Disclosing this Mr Saad A. AlShuwaib, CEO, KPC, said that he met top officials of RIL in Mumbai on Wednesday and held a meeting with IOC board members on Thursday to explore the possibility of setting up a 400,000 barrels a day refin ery and a chemical plant with an annual capacity of one million tonnes.

"It could be a green-field project or a joint acquisition," Mr Al-Shuwaib said and added that the production from these proposed refineries would be exported from India.

Mr Al-Shuwaib said that the joint ventures could at a future date look at projects outside India. KPC is open to taking two partners, if necessary.

He said KPC would be willing to supply crude oil for this refinery and petrochemical project in India. "We would like to supply it with Kuwaiti oil. That is the main investment target for us," he said.

Kuwait Petroleum current ly exports around 250,000 bbl per day of crude to India on annual term-contracts to Indian companies like IOC and Reliance and is keen to raise the supplies. "We can raise it but it depends on the companies," KPC's managing director Mr Abdullatif A. Al-Houti said.

"We would like to be always committed to the Government of India in supplying oil (and) better relations for reliable supplies," Mr Al-Shuwaib said.

Mr Al-Shuwaib made it clear that they were not interested in taking stake in any of the existing refiner ies like the Jamnagar refinery or the refinery to be built by Reliance Petroleum Limited. They are interested in new projects.

Mr Al-Houti said that KPC would be look ing at IOC's 150,000 barrels per day Paradip project which has been reconfigured to include a refinerycum-petrochemical plant. Kuwait Petroleum Corp could not consider it earlier as it was only a refinery project and they were interested in an integrated refinerycum-petrochemical complex.

On high global crude prices, Mr Al-Shuwaib said: "We see prices going up and down. We don't see problems with the supply and demand."

4 Indians abducted from Nigeria oil rig

In yet another case of those infamous Nigerian abductions for ransom, three young technicians from a village in south Tamil Nadu and one from Thane in Maharashtra were picked up along with two Polish crew by armed militants from an offshore rig off Port Harcourt in the oil-rich African country on Friday, according to information reaching here.

"The Nigerian militants boarded the oil rig, Floating Production Storage & Offloading (FPSO) of Mystras at 6 am local time (1100 IST) and took away the six men, including two Polish nationals. They are demanding US$ 50 million. We are very worried," said Jaipal Sudarshan, brother of abducted Ajith Kamaraj