Audi to enter armoured car market in India with A8 L Security
29 Jan 2012;hindustantimes.com:New Delhi: German auto major Audi is eyeing to enter the high-end armoured car market in India with its A8 L Security model that could cost around Rs 5 crore, and the first vehicle is likely to be delivered this year. The company, which had showcased the car that can withstand attacks from AK-47s and hand grenades to select guests during the recently concluded Auto Expo in New Delhi, is understood to have already received about 20 enquiries from the government and top corporate honchos of the country. According to sources close to the development, Audi is likely to deliver the first A8 L Security in India within next 4-6 months and is tagged around Rs 5 crore. "This is a very niche product and is for only a few select persons like top government officials and heads of business groups. Any possible deal is directly handled by the security division of Audi from Germany," a source said. During the Auto Expo earlier this month, the company has received about "20 active enquiries" from some government departments and top businessmen of the country, the source said, adding Audi is in the process of evaluating the requests at present. When contacted, Audi India officials declined to comment on any such development. The sources, however, said Audi has ruled out making the vehicle available to normal customers. "It will always be very selective sale. Audi is also eyeing defence, para-military and police forces in India," the source said. The car is completely customised with security gadgets and the price will vary according to specifications that are put in place on requests of individuals. "The car will be handed over to owners as a fully imported model. Although nobody can say the price for sure at this moment, but it is guessed at around Rs 4 crore to Rs 5 crore," another source said. The Audi A8 L Security is manufactured at a dedicated high-security production facility in Germany in order to maintain comprehensive secrecy of the entire process. Audi AG uses many premium and strong materials such as high-strength steel, aramid fibre, ceramic, multi-layer glass and a special aluminium alloy. The car carries an armoured box for the vehicle and communication electronics. "The underbody has blast protection and anti-magnetic armour plating. Just to give an example of how solid and secure the vehicle is, only one door of the car weighs about 160 kg," the source said. The car also has the capacity to protect the passengers from chemical attacks such as poisonous gas, he added.
Jaipal Reddy wants Rs 80,000 additional tax on diesel cars
28 Jan 2012;timesofindia.indiatimes.com:NEW DELHI: If S Jaipal Reddy has his way, diesel car prices would rise substantially shortly. The oil minister on Friday formally proposed to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to slap an additional excise duty of Rs 80,000 on diesel vehicles in the Union Budget, a move that is bound to be opposed by the automotive industry and the department of heavy industries. During his meeting with Mukherjee on the oil ministry's budget wish list, Reddy also sought a 10-year tax holiday for oil and gas hunting companies and new refineries as well as removal of 5% import duty on gas imported in ships. The idea of additional excise levy has been tossing around in the oil ministry since 2008-09 as a way of raising funds to at least partially meet the Centre's burden on subsidizing diesel. But the idea never made it to the formal discussion table since it was felt that the funds garnered would not be significant in view of the massive size of the fuel subsidy burden.
Subsidy burden zooms for ONGC & OIL, to impact Q3 nos
27 Jan 2012;business-standard.com:Ajay Modi:New Delhi: The subsidy burden of upstream oil companies Oil Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) have more than doubled in the third quarter ended December 31. ONGC’s subsidy burden for the quarter is Rs 8,875 crore, compared to Rs 4,222 crore in the corresponding quarter of last year. OIL’s burden is expected to jump 135 per cent to Rs 1,313 crore. “This year, the upstream companies will probably have to bear the highest ever burden towards oil subsidy, as prices have not been increased for long and under-recoveries of the three oil marketers will be at a record high,” said an OIL official. The two government upstream companies, along with GAIL, make good a third of the losses made by government oil marketing companies (OMCs) on selling diesel, kerosene and LPG at government rates. The OMCs — Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum — purchase crude oil at market rates but are required to sell diesel, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) at government-set prices. These losses are usually compensated by a cash subsidy from the government and discounts on crude purchase from ONGC and OIL. For the quarter just ended, the OMCs incurred a revenue loss of Rs 32,413 crore on regulated sale of the three products, of which a third, or Rs 10,805 crore, has to come from ONGC, Oil India and GAIL. Currently, the three OMCs are incurring a revenue loss of Rs 442 crore daily on sale of the three products. Their loss is Rs 12.95 on every litre of diesel, Rs 28.50 on every litre of kerosene and Rs 326 on every domestic LPG cylinder. The prices of these three politically sensitive products, that account of around 60 per cent of OMC sales, have not been revised since June 25 last year. Their prices are unlikely to be revised till early March, when five state assembly polls conclude. In 2010-11, upstream companies were made to bear 38.8 per cent of the OMCs’ gross revenue loss. This year, so far the one-third formula has been followed for calculating their subsidy share. However, watchers expect the share to be increased during the fourth quarter.
26 Jan 2012;business-standard.com:Dehra Dun: ONGC CMD Sudhir Vasudeva today said the company has been able to arrest the decline in its oil production, maintaining it at the level of 1-1.5%, and asserted that it was for the government to decide on its proposed 5% follow-on public offer. Addressing newsmen here, Vasudeva said the world-over, the decline in oil companies' production is 4% to 5%, but ONGC has maintained the decline in oil production at the rate of 1% to 1.5%. "To maintain the oil production at the current level is itself a big challenge," he said. In this regard, he said 70% of ONGC's oil production comes from 15 major fields out of the total 110 fields the company has, and on average, all of them are 30-35 years old. "So concerted efforts are being made to maintain the production as well as improve recovery from them," he said. On 5% disinvestment in ONGC, Vasudava said it was for the government to take a decision on the proposed issue. "It is still on the cards. Earlier market conditions were bad. But these conditions have started looking up," he said. During the previous fiscal, the company registered a record production of 62.05 million tonnes of oil and oil-equivalent gas from domestic and overseas assets. ONGC accounts for 73% of oil and 48% of gas production in India. To a question, Vasudeva said hydrocarbon reserves are not going to run out in the next 40 years, but said ONGC is focused on tapping the potential of new sources of energy like coal bed methane, underground coal gasification and shale gas. Regarding alternative sources of energy, he said ONGC is setting up another 102-MW wind farm in Rajasthan at an investment of Rs 800 crore after successful commissioning of a 50-MW wind farm in Gujarat. In this regard, he said wind energy has a potential of nearly 40,000 MW in the country. To a question on the payment problem with Iran, the CMD said till date, the company has not faced any problem in getting oil supply from the Gulf country due to the issue of payment. He said the matter is being discussed at the government of India level and would be sorted out by them. Earlier, in his address on the occasion of India's Republic Day, Vasudeva said a decade back, ONGC had set three strategic goals -- doubling its reserves to 12 billion tonnes by 2020, increasing its recovery factor from 28% to 40% by 2020 and sourcing 20 MMTPA of crude by 2020 for the growth of the organisation and for energy security of the nation. "To emphasise our commitment, we have now set the fourth strategic goal for the organisation -- to accrete resources of one billion tonnes of oil-equivalent from unconventional sources of energy by 2020," he said, asking ONGC employees to work harder to this possible.
'India will pay a heavy price': Diesel cars guzzling 40% of segment's fuel, says study
25 Jan 2012;timesofindia.indiatimes.com:NEW DELHI: Trashing industry contention that diesel use by cars is very low, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) Wednesday said 40 percent of the total fuel used in the car segment in the country is diesel. An analysis of the car industry by the CSE found that in 2011-12, diesel cars will account for over 40 percent of the total car sales in the country. Also, for the first-time ever, bigger diesel cars - the SUVs - are selling more and there is no slowdown in dieselisation. Increased use of diesel by cars means enhanced public health risks. It also means greater revenue losses due to the under-priced and under-taxed fuel -- with each litre of petrol replaced by diesel to run a car, the excise earnings of the government dropped seven times, the CSE said. "Without fiscal brakes in the forthcoming budget, India will pay a heavy price," says Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE's executive director-research and advocacy and head of its air pollution and urban mobility team. "The automobile industry is trying hard to prove that cars and SUVs are very small users of diesel, so that it can block the growing demand to put higher taxes on diesel cars to offset the revenue losses and cut public health risk," she said. The analysis says cheap diesel is pushing market towards bigger cars that guzzle more diesel. "Petrol car sales are higher in small car segment - 87 percent of petrol cars are below 1200 cc -- while 40 percent of the diesel cars are above 1500 cc," it said. There are 24 diesel car models in the engine size class range of less than 1,400 cc; 42 models in the range 1,401-2,000 cc; and 61 models in the class above 2,000 cc engines. This shows how more models are proliferating in the big car and SUV segments, the report said. Use of diesel in cars has increased so much that the excise earnings from petrol and diesel have equalled despite high excise duty on petrol. "If the new diesel car fleet to roll between 2009 and 2015 were to pay the same amount of excise as the petrol car fleet, the potential excise revenue from the lifetime fuel use can be as high as Rs.100,000 crore," Roychowdhury said. "Present revenue loss due to diesel subsidy is Rs.86,000 crore," she added. The Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell of the union ministry of petroleum and natural gas said petrol consumption has slowed down while diesel use has registered 6.4 percent growth. The CSE said it analysis showed the industry is playing with data to confuse and obfuscate. "The new number game says diesel cars, SUVs and taxis use only 5 percent of total diesel used - cars use 0.6 percent while a committee chaired by Kirit Parikh found it to be 15 percent," she said. The CSE has written to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee demanding additional tax on diesel cars to reduce public revenue losses and public health costs.
24 Jan 2012;business-standard.com:Washington:India's purchase of oil from Iran has dropped slightly in last two years and is expected to drop further given the difficulties New Delhi might have in making payments through banks due to tough sanctions imposed by US-led international community against top Iranian banks. "Iran is an important source for our crude petroleum imports. These imports have declined a little, not very much, but a little over the last couple of years, last two years or so," Indian Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao said. "And... Given the sanctions and given the difficulties in operating banking channels vis-a-vis Iran, obviously the volume can't be expected to go up in such a situation. There may be a further decline. It may well be so," she said. Rao said India was in touch with the US Government and closely monitoring the developing situation concerning Iran, when asked about the pressure from the US that India needs to reduce its dependency on Iranian oil. India, she argued, was a responsible country and works with the international community on this issue. "We abide by the rules. We do not play outside the system on these. But it must be remembered that the Gulf region is terribly important for India," she said, referring to the six million Indians working there. It's a source of our energy imports, she added. Noting that India was basically an energy importing country, Rao referred to the Mangalore refinery which imports Iranian oil. "So it is going to take time to readjust and too see how we can move away from the old patterns of how we operate on these issues," Rao said. India is second-largest importer of Iranian crude oil after China.
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