Reliance Industries and its partner BP plc of UK have submitted to the government a $2 -2.5 billion plan to bring to production India's deepest gas discovery by 2021-22.

The partners yesterday submitted to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) a field development plan (FDP) for the MJ-1 gas find, which is located about 2,000 meters directly below the currently producing Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1 and D3) fields in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block, sources with direct knowledge of the development said.

Mumbai: State-run Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) will shortly hit the market to raise $500 million to partly fund its planned capital expenditure of Rs8,000 crore for this fiscal, two people aware of the development said.

“We are planning to raise $500 million shortly. We are still working on the timeline and the instrument we would be using to raise the funds,” a senior BPCL official said on condition of anonymity as he is not allowed to speak to reporters.

Shares of all three state-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) were trading higher by up to 4% on BSE in early morning trade after the government cut the excise duty on both branded and unbranded petrol and diesel by Rs 2 a litre from Wednesday.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL) have gained between 3% and 4%, extending their gains for the past 2 days on the BSE.

Mumbai: Wary of being left behind in the race for renewables and electric vehicles, oil marketing companies are quietly drawing up plans to expand their modest presence in renewable energy space.

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd, the largest of the three big oil marketers, is exploring opportunities for setting up battery charging stations and battery replacement facilities for electric vehicles in its petrol pumps. “We are also looking at opportunities for manufacturing and retailing lithium-ion batteries,” the company said in its annual report for 2016-17.

Shares of the state-run oil marketing companies IOC, BPCL and HPCL dived up to 2.8% after Moody’s Investors Service said that the state-owned fuel retailers have to increase borrowings. IOC, BPCL, and HPCL will have to go in for increased borrowings to sustain high dividend payments and capital spending this fiscal, keeping their credit metrics weak, Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday.

New Delhi: State-owned fuel retailers Indian Oil Corp. (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) will go in for increased borrowings to sustain high dividend payments and capital spending this fiscal, keeping their credit metrics weak, Moody’s Investors Service said on Tuesday.

The rating agency expected dividend payments by the three companies to drop modestly in 2017-18, but remain higher than in 2015-16. The government expects to receive Rs67,500 crore of dividends from all state-owned companies in 2017-18, less than Rs77,000 crore estimated to have been received in 2016-17, but more than double than Rs30,800 crore in 2015-16.

Shares of the IOC, BPCL, and HPCL tumbled on the news that government may ask the oil marketing companies to absorb further increase in global crude oil prices. The stock of the nation’s largest company Indian Oil Corporation fell as much as 6.2% to the day’s low of Rs 408; shares of another state-run refiner Bharat Petroleum Corporation plunged 8.4% to the day’s low of Rs 489. Shares of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation lost 8% to the day’s low of Rs 443.7.

Bharat Petroleum, which has just been upgraded to a Maharatna company, today said it has lined up capital expenditure of Rs 1.08 trillion for the next five years.

The public sector oil retailer will spend the money on capacity expansion of refineries as well as marketing and upstream activities, its chairman and managing director D Rajkumar told reporters at a post-AGM press meet here late evening.

State-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is set to invest at least Rs 18,000 crore on expansion of its refineries in the next five years, in order to add another 19 million tonne (mt) refining capacity.

This will be part of the company’s overall road map to spend Rs 1.08 lakh crore till 2021-22. “Including our subsidiaries, our refining capacity is somewhere about 31 mt, we are planning to move closer to 50 mt by somewhere around 2022. This will see an investment of approximately about Rs 18,000 crore,” D Rajkumar, chairman and managing director of BPCL, told Business Standard.

Shares of state-owned oil refiners rallied by up to 5% on BSE in intra-day trade on report that the government will end subsidy on kerosene.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) gained 5% to Rs 388, while Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) surged 4.4% to Rs 401 and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) rose 3% to Rs 499 on BSE in intra-day trade. On comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 159 points or 0.49% at 32,318 at 10:25 am.

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