Ministry to discuss allocation of Rs 30,000 crore with OMCs in next few days: Petroleum Secretary

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will discuss the allocation of Rs 30,000 crore in the Budget 2023 earmarked for India’s energy transition with Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in the next few days.

Pankaj Jain, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, told Moneycontrol on the sidelines of India Energy Week – 2023 that the distribution of the outlay will be decided by the ministry.

Asked how the allocation would be distributed among OMCs, Jain said, “That has been left to the (Petroleum) ministry to work out. The allocation has just been announced; in the next few days we will sit down with the OMCs and work that out.”

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had allocated Rs 35,000 crore for capital investments by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas in India’s energy transition and net zero initiatives.

The allocation is to be spent on the green energy capital expenditure of oil companies. It will also go towards augmenting India’s strategic petroleum reserves, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri had told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview.

Puri clarified that the Rs 35,000 crore includes Rs 30,000 crore as capital support, and this is not the amount that the government will give OMCs to make up for earlier losses.

The three oil marketing companies — Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) — had reported a combined loss of Rs 27,276 crore in the first half of the current financial year.​