All PSUs, save IOC, may bid for HPCL, BPCL

The government on Wednesday virtually paved the way for oil PSUs like Oil and Natural Gas Corporation to bid for Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum with divestment minister saying that only Indian Oil Corp was excluded from bidding for the two petroleum corporations to be put on block shortly.

"Cabinet committee on divestment on Wednesday decided to appoint advisors for privatisation of HPCL and BPCL... we will now explore all avenues and approach CCD with concrete proposal on the modality of divestment in the two PSUs," Divestment Minister Arun Shourie told reporters.

Asked if other oil PSUs like ONGC would be allowed to bid for the two petro PSUs, he said, "the decision is that only IOC will not be allowed to bid for HPCL and BPCL."

On whether CCD had discussed a proposal to keep out all other oil PSUs from the divestment process of the two corporations, he said "I am not going to reveal the discussions... the decision as of now is to keep IOC out...anyone else can do."

Shourie met Petroleum Minister Ram Naik just before the meeting of CCD, chaired by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, amidst reports that divestment ministry was not in favour of allowing other oil PSUs to bid for HPCL and BPCL.

While IOC had earlier sought to be included in the bidding process for HPCL and BPCL, domestic crude producer ONGC said this morning that it would explore all options to integrate refining and marketing operations subject to availability of resources.

Shourie said that an in-principle decision to privatise BPCL and HPCL was taken at the previous meeting of CCD "and today the cabinet committee asked us to start the process of appointing advisors."

"It is an elaborate process... we will consult and decide on our proposals as to how much to divest," he said.

He replied in negative when asked if IOC's demand for allowing it to bid for oil PSUs or keep Relaince out of the privatisation process of IPCL on the same grounds of monopoly was considered at CCD.

While approving IOC's Rs 11.53 billion bid for government's 33 per cent stake in oil marketing PSU IBP Company earlier this month, CCD had decided to ban IOC from bidding for HPCL and BPCL.

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