According to ET Now, an Inter-Ministerial group will meet today, 4th February 2021 to discuss the privatization of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). Another topic of debate is the Numaligarh refinery stake sale.
Various bluechip public sector undertakings such as BPCL and Air India have been moving towards privatization. The preliminary work began in late 2019 and 2020 was supposed to be the landmark year for the shift of India’s 3 greatest PSUs — BPCL, Air India and Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) — to privatization.
Unfortunately due the outbreak of COVID-19, these timelines were postponed into the near future but the government has made it clear that it will not back out of its disinvestment plans with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Cabinet Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, the nodal ministry for BPCL, went to the extent of saying that, “the government has no business to be in the business”.
Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) is a subsidiary of BPCL and therefore, is being bought out as part of the government’s plan to divest itself of BPCL. The state-refiner BPCL held 61.65% stake in NRL, while Oil India held 26% and the government of Assam held 12.35%.
Harish Madhav, Director Finance, Oil India told analysts post the company’s annual results in 2020 said, “Principal decision has been taken by the government, that Oil India Ltd and Engineers India Ltd. consortium will be acquiring 48% of the BPCL stake.”
The second-largest fuel retailing company in India had received three initial bids to purchase controlling stake. Mining-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta confirmed their bid on November 18, 2020 as they put in an expression of interest (EoI) for buying the government’s 52.98% stake. The other two are expected to be global funds, one of them being Apollo Global Management.
Pradhan said, “Lot of interest is there,” at a webinar series on ‘The Road To Atmanirbhar Bharat’ organised by Swarajya Magazine.
BPCL is trading at Rs 418.35 at 11:52 AM, up 0.83% as against the previous close of Rs 414.90 on the NSE. The opening for the day was Rs 413.60.
