Rs 2k-crore bond sale depends on fuel price hike: Behuria
Kolkata   07-Jan-2008
IndianOil's plan to sell Rs 2,000 crore worth of oil bonds to partly offset losses due to selling fuel below cost will depend on price revision and other factors, company chairman Sarthak Behuria said. "Sale of bonds will depend upon some factors like price revision which will be recommended by the group of ministers likely to meet in the third week of January. After that we will see how far the under-recovery comes down," he said during a weekend visit here. Behuria said the company was losing Rs 165 crore per day on sale of petrol diesel, LPG and kerosene below the cost of production, and facing a shortfall in working capital fund. Crude oil prices touched 100 dollars a barrel mark last week. The country imports nearly three-fourth of its crude oil requirements, but the government has not allowed state oil marketing firms such as IndianOil to raise domestic prices for the past one-and-a-half years despite the spurt in global prices.