State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) is keen to acquire India's third-biggest fuel retailer HPCL in a Rs 42,254 crore deal after finding Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) too expensive to buy.

Following up on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's Budget announcement of creating an integrated oil company, ONGC evaluated options of acquiring either Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) or BPCL - the two downstream oil refining and fuel marketing companies.

New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki zipped past Infosys and ONGC in market capitalisation (m-cap) as its stock rose by 3% on Friday, adding Rs6,563 crore to the value.

The stock gained 3% to end at Rs7,451 on the BSE. During the day, it went up by 3.25% to Rs7,469—its 52-week high. It was the top gainer on the BSE benchmark Sensex. On NSE, the stock moved up by 2.97% to close at Rs7,464.85.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd’s (ONGC’s) profitability in the March quarter was adversely impacted by certain one-off elements.

The oil producer had to shell out Rs2,444 crore towards royalty payments to the states of Gujarat and Assam. There was also a provision of Rs1,944 crore relating to employee pay revision.

The government is said to be planning to combine the state-run refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd with the giant oil explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp by December this year by selling its 51.1% stake in the former to the latter for $4.5 billion (about Rs 29,000 crore), ET Now reported citing wire reports, which in turn cited unidentified sources.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is learnt to be in favour of adopting a subsidiary model for combining the two oil PSUs instead of merging the companies, making ONGC the parent company of HPCL, the report said. However, the government will decide final model of combining in few months, it added.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's (ONGC's) onshore crude oil domestic production witnessed an increase of 2.4% during last fiscal, after falling for three consecutive years.

Onshore production rose to 5.97 million metric tonne (mmt) during FY17 from 5.82 mmt a year ago. The reversal has happened on account of early monetization of discoveries at Ankleshwar, Cauvery (Madnam) and Rajahmundry (Keshnapalli West), among others, shows the latest data available with the oil and gas major.

With a steady rise in domestic fossil fuel consumption making the country’s target of cutting import dependence on oil more challenging, state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has decided to aggressively expand its acreage under exploration and production from July once the government starts accepting bids for 26 unexplored sedimentary basins.

The country’s largest oil and gas producer intends to increase its exploration and production acreage at least by 30% over the next few years from 90,000 square kilometers at present, a senior official said, asking not to be named.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has said that producing natural gas is no longer a profitable business for the company as the government-mandated gas price is significantly below the cost of production.

The BJP-led government had in October 2014 evolved a new pricing formula using rates prevalent in gas surplus nations like the US, Canada and Russia to determine rates in a net importing country. Prices have halved to $2.48 per million British thermal unit since the formula was implemented.

India’s state-owned oil companies aim to sustain spending near a three-year high, encouraged by falling oil-services costs and expanding demand. The country’s largest oil refiner Indian Oil Corp. will boost domestic spending by a quarter in the year to March 31 and smaller processor Hindustan Petroleum Corp. plans to invest about 17 percent more this year. Oil and Natural Gas Corp., the biggest explorer and top spender, plans to invest as much as last year. The 11 state-owned companies spent more than one trillion rupees ($16 billion) in the year ended March 31, the highest since 2014.

Sudan has denied India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd an extension of licence to operate an oilfield as it sought higher royalties and taxes to make up for revenue lost due to drop in oil prices. The licence for Block 2B expired last November and an automatic 5-year extension is available but Sudan, whose revenues have been hit with a drop in oil prices, wanted higher taxes and royalties before it agreed to the same, officials said.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) moved higher by 3% at Rs 185 on BSE on the back of two-fold jump in trading volumes.

Till 02:31 pm; about 901,000 shares changed hands on the counter against an average 389,000 shares were traded daily in past two weeks, the BSE data shows. A combined around seven million shares changed hands on the NSE and BSE so far.

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