ONGC, Indian Oil Share Sales May Raise $4.1 Billion for Indian Government
By Natalie Obiko Pearson - Sep 11, 2010 2:53 PM GMT+0530
India may raise as much as 190 billion rupees ($4.1 billion) selling shares in Oil & Natural Gas Corp., the country’s biggest energy explorer, and Indian Oil Corp., to help cut its budget deficit.
Indian Oil, the nation’s second-biggest refiner, may raise a further 100 billion rupees by selling fresh equity to help it fund a new crude oil processing plant it is building, Oil Secretary S. Sundareshan told reporters in Mumbai today.
“The plan is to complete the disinvestments before the end of the fiscal year,” Sundareshan said. “It will be Indian Oil followed by ONGC. In the last quarter, hopefully.”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants to raise 400 billion rupees from asset sales in the year ending March 31 to help fund the construction of roads, ports, hospitals and schools. The government said in January it can sell shares in as many as 68 companies as it seeks to shrink its budget deficit to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product this fiscal year from an estimated 6.9 percent last year.
Indian Oil is building a refinery in Orissa state with an annual processing capacity of 15 million tons. The refiner plans to spend 145 billion rupees in the financial year ending March compared with 135 billion rupees last year to increase capacity, Serangulam V. Narasimhan, finance director, said Jan. 6.
ONGC will complete the valuation on BP Plc’s assets in Vietnam in a few weeks as it seeks to buy them in partnership with Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, Sundareshan also said.
State-owned ONGC is considering all options for buying partner BP’s stake in a Vietnam gas field, Chairman R.S. Sharma said July 22. The London-based company, which is raising funds to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, agreed July 20 to sell fields in the U.S., Canada and Egypt to Houston-based Apache Corp. for $7 billion and plans to dispose of assets in Pakistan and Vietnam.
Video-Kohinoor Dimond Mines
12 Sep, 2010, 11.43AM IST,PTI
NMDC to invite bids for its biggest 34.37 carat diamond find
NEW DELHI: Mineral giant NMDC will invite bids for its prized possession -- a 34.37 carat diamond-- the biggest ever gem produced from its Panna Mines in Madhya Pradesh that it expects could yield as high as up to 5 crore.
"Yes, we will invite tenders for the biggest ever diamond produced in our Panna Mines very soon and this could be a global tender as well," NMDC Chairman Rana Som told PTI.
Along with the pear-shaped white good quality diamond, the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) plans inviting tenders for about 40 other diamonds, weighing above 5 carats and below 30 carat each, the value of which are still to be evaluated.
The modalities and details for tender of 34.37 carat diamond will be finalised soon after we auction 9,700 carats of rough diamonds this week in Mumbai, he said.
The 34.37 carat jewel, which was recovered from a pit on June 30 from the company's Panna Mines will not be placed in auction in Mumbai, scheduled for September 16 and 17, along with other big size diamonds, said another senior official.
Earlier, the mines had produced a 32 carat diamond in 2005 and a 30.30 carat diamond in 2003, which were sold for about Rs 1 crore each.
"We are hopeful to raise about Rs 5 crore from auction of at least 60 per cent of the 9,700 carats of rough diamonds, which will be exhibited for merchants from September 13 to 15," the official said.
The diamonds that will be auctioned will be less than 5 carats, mostly weighing about 2-2.5 carats each, he said.
The Panna mines at Majhgaon are the Asia's biggest mechanised diamond mines and its diamonds are rated next to those produced from South African mines.
The mining operations, which closed here in 2005 in want of forest clearance and approvals from the adjoining wildlife sanctuary, resumed in August last year after getting a conditional nod from the Supreme Court.
The court asked the miner to pay Rs 10.69 crore as net present value (NPV) to the state government, which in June 2009, gave the green signal to resume mining activities at the site.
The company produced about 17,000 carats last fiscal against a target of 35,000 carats. The Panna mines have an estimated reserves of 12 lakh carats of diamond.
Video-Financial Crises-2010
12 Sep, 2010, 10.19AM IST,REUTERS
S.Korea Finance Minister sees higher global downside risk
SEOUL: South Korea's Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said on Sunday the global economy is faced with increasing downside risks from the slowdown in major economies. Asia's fourth-largest economy is still on a recovery track, but the risks may prevent it from enjoying smooth growth, Yoon said.
"It is true that downside risks of the global economy are growing with a deterioration in economic data in the US and China since August and as Japan's exports are slowing on a firmer yen," he said in a statement. Developed countries are focusing their policies on maintaining their recovery momentum and improving fiscal soundness, he added.
His remarks came three days after the central bank held interest rates steady, defying market expectations for a rise, and signalled future tightening would only be modest given growing uncertainties over the global economy.
Video- Is the Canadian Recession Over?
Bank of Canada warns of risks to recovery
The Canadian Press
CALGARY — Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney has signalled he will move cautiously on future interest rate hikes, given the growing and difficult challenges facing the world's economic system.
In a speech full of red flags for the world's recovery, Carney told international business leaders in Calgary on Friday that the world is in need of major reforms and that adjustments will be wrenching.
"The fact is we're three years in to the global financial crisis and its dynamics still dominate the economic outlook," Carney told the forum.
"In particular, broad forces of bank, household and sovereignty leveraging can be expected to add to the variability and temper the pace of global economic growth in the years ahead," he said.
In addition, he made it clear that he was concerned about the weak U.S. economy, noting it could have "important implications" for Canada's future growth.
"In this environment, the bank will have to chart a careful course for Canadian monetary policy," he said.
"Any further reduction in monetary policy stimulus would need to be carefully considered in light of the unusual uncertainty surrounding the outlook," he added, repeating the same language he used Tuesday when he hiked the bank's overnight rate a further quarter point to one per cent.
It was the third successive rate hike since June and put the Canadian central bank alone among the Group of Seven economies on a path of withdrawing monetary stimulus.
The address, part of a panel discussion focusing on the upcoming G20 summit in South Korea, was as gloomy as Carney has been in some time about the difficulties facing the global economic and financial systems and efforts to address them.
"The question is whether to change the system or to change policies to be consistent with the current system. There's no miracle cure,"said Carney.
"Faith is required but not in some barbarous relic like gold or utopian global central bank. Rather countries must restore their faith in the adjustment process under the current international monetary system."
Carney said both the International Monetary Fund and G7 institutions have proven wanting and the jury is still out on the new, bigger G20 process.
He was especially critical of emerging economies such as China, which have yet to make adjustments to exchange rates needed to address global imbalances. Most of the adjustments made so far, he said, have come from advanced economies in efforts to rein in spending.
"Measures that have actually been implemented have been consistent with the deflation path. While the ... right promises have been made, conviction is required," he said.
"Without the successful completion of the G20 reforms, the current recovery is at risk."
Adjusting the current forces at work in the global economy requires completing global bank reforms, making progress in getting China and other emerging economies to move to more flexible exchange rates, addressing global imbalances and other structural changes to global systems.
He noted that the Bank of Canada pegged the potential difference between the co-operative path among the G20 countries and not working together at $7 trillion by 2015.
Even so, he said making the right adjustments won't be easy or painless, nor is assured that the G20 is up to the task.
"Time will tell whether the G20 nations can better the underwhelming track record of the G7 in co-ordinating policies," he said.
Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve and current chairman of President Barack Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, was equally gloomy.
"I think it is fair to say that we will not reach, in the United States, peak levels of production for several years even on a reasonably optimistic trajectory," Volcker said.
"We have a financial situation in the United States that's still operating on maybe two cylinders, but it's not operating on six cylinders," he said.
Volcker was also concerned about the strength of emerging economies such as China, India and a number of Latin American countries. Such countries are exhibiting a "remarkable rate of recovery," becoming investors in and lending money to the traditionally wealthier states, he said.
"Not only are they expanding very fast but we have a phenomena that is not seen or written about in economic textbooks," he said.
"That tells you there is something really rather seriously wrong and imbalanced in the world economy. We have been for some time in an unsustainable economic pattern."
Volcker said Europe is suffering from many of the same problems as the United States and will need "years and not months" to recover.
"They are showing the same symptoms that we have had in the United States with the risk that puts the stability of the euro itself in some jeopardy."
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