The Central government to reduce fuel price by Rs 2.50 per litre, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday said that the Centre had only followed the footsteps of the Karnataka government.

The JD(S)-Congress coalition government led by Kumaraswamy had reduced the tax (sales tax on fuel) by Rs 2 per litre only a month ago.

“The Centre has finally provided some relief to the common man by reducing the fuel price,” said Kumaraswamy speaking to reporters here. He, however, ruled out any further price reduction by the state government citing that fuel prices had been reduced in the state only last month after the nation-wide bandh protesting against the fuel price hike.

Meanwhile, state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa has demanded that the State government should immediately reduce the sales tax on fuel by Rs 2.30 per litre.

PTI

Petrochemicals are set to account for more than a third of the growth in world oil demand to 2030, and almost half the growth to 2050, adding nearly seven million barrels of oil a day by then, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.

This means oil demand growth is shifting to petrochemicals, away from motor fuels.

The rising use of plastics is poised to consume an additional 56 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas by 2030, and 83 bcm by 2050.

Petrochemicals — components derived from oil and gas that are used in all sorts of daily products such as plastics, fertilisers, packaging, clothing, digital devices, medical equipment, detergents and tyres — are becoming the largest drivers of global oil demand, in front of cars, planes and trucks, according to a major study by the IEA.

To address these challenges, the IEA’s Future of Petrochemicals report outlines a clean technology scenario, which provides an alternative future in line with key UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as climate action, responsible consumption and life below water, among others.

The scenario provides an ambitious but achievable pathway to reduce the environmental impacts of petrochemicals: air pollutants from primary chemicals production decline by almost 90 per cent by 2050; direct CO2 emissions reduce by nearly 60 per cent; and water demand is nearly 30 per cent lower than in the base scenario.

It also emphasises waste management improvements to rapidly increase recycling, thereby laying the groundwork to more than halve cumulative, ocean-bound, plastic waste by 2050.

In the clean technology scenario, petrochemicals become the only growing segment of global oil demand.

Despite near-tripling in plastic waste collection by 2050, the limited availability of cost-effective substitutes for oil feedstock means that oil demand for petrochemicals remains resilient.

The IEA’s report was developed with input from governments, industry and other key stakeholders, and seeks to bring the sector the attention it deserves in the global energy policy debate.

It also provides ten key policy recommendations to build a more sustainable and efficient petrochemicals industry.

“Our economies are heavily dependent on petrochemicals, but the sector receives far less attention than it deserves,” IEA’s Executive Director Fatih Birol said.

“Petrochemicals are one of the key blind spots in the global energy debate, especially given the influence they will exert on future energy trends. In fact, our analysis shows they will have a greater influence on the future of oil demand than cars, trucks and aviation.”

Demand for plastics — the key driver for petrochemicals from an energy perspective — has outpaced all other bulk materials such as steel, aluminium, or cement, nearly doubling since 2000.

Advanced economies currently use up to 20 times more plastic and up to 10 times more fertiliser than developing economies on a per capita basis, underscoring the huge potential for global growth.

The dynamism of the petrochemical industry is also driving new trends around the world.

After decades of stagnation and decline, the US has re-emerged as a low-cost location for chemicals production thanks to the shale gas revolution, and is now home to around 40 per cent of the global ethane-based petrochemical production capacity.

The Middle East remains the lowest cost centre for many key petrochemicals, with a host of new projects announced across the region.

Petrochemical products provide substantial benefits to society, including a growing number of applications in various cutting-edge, clean technologies critical to sustainable energy systems.

However, the production, use and disposal of petrochemical-derived products present a variety of climate, air quality and water pollution challenges that need to be addressed.

While substantial increases in recycling and efforts to curb single-use plastics are underway, especially in Europe, Japan and Korea, the impact these efforts can have on demand for petrochemicals is far outweighed by sharply increasing plastic consumption in emerging economies, said the IEA.

IANS

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday once again pleaded with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring petrol and diesel under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

Reiterating his year-old request, Gandhi tweeted: “Respected Modiji, the general public is very upset with the skyrocketing prices of petrol and diesel.

“Please bring petrol-diesel under the GST regime.”

His comments came a day after the Centre cut petrol and diesel prices by Rs 2.50 per litre, a decision that was followed by several BJP-ruled states, giving an overall relief of Rs 5 per litre to the consumer.

The Congress had on Thursday described the price cut as “an ant” compared to the hike that was “an elephant”.

Last year in October Gandhi had demanded that fuel should come under the ambit of GST to prevent “excessive profiteering”. A year on, petrol prices have touched Rs 90, while diesel hovers around the 80-mark.

IANS

The key domestic equity indices opened in the red on Friday, as the S&P BSE Sensex dropped nearly 280 points and the NSE Nifty50 traded below the 10,600-mark.

Index-wise, the Sensex opened at 35,097.99 points from its previous close of 35,169.16 points on Thursday.

At 9.20 a.m., it traded at 34,887.23 points down by 281.93 points or 0.80 per cent.

Similarly, the Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) opened at 10,514.10 points after closing at 10,599.25 points. It traded at 10,530.45 points during the morning trade session, down 68.80 points and 0.65 per cent.

IANS

 The new Board of debt-stricken IL&FS is in the process of assessing the company’s financial situation and is deliberating on various viable solutions to restore solvency, a Board member said on Thursday, even as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government is determined to ensure that the company’s insolvency issue is contained quickly to prevent further adverse impact.

Addressing the media, after the new Board’s first meeting here on Thursday, Uday Kotak, MD & CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, who has been appointed as the Non-Executive Chairman of the company by the Central government, said all options are being looked at to salvage the financial position of IL&FS.

He further said that the Board will meet again to decide on the best way to implement the roadmap laid out by the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal).

“This is a process which is under NCLT process, which is a process independent of…at this stage, in terms of having more detailed discussion with the shareholders…..we will be talking to the shareholders at an appropriate time.”

Without ruling out options like sale of assets and rights issues, Kotak refuted comparisons being made between IL&FS and the IT major Satyam that went bust nearly a decade ago.

“This is a very complex company…one has to keep that in mind and it is a financial market intermediary but also in the real world space. Therefore there are significant financial market challenges which make it a little different from directly comparing with the Satyam situation,” he said.

The meeting comes days after the Central government superseded the management of the beleaguered company via a NCLT order and appointed a six-member board led by Kotak to restore its financial solvency.

Key public sector lenders and undertakings such as LIC and SBI have a 25.34 per cent and 6.42 per cent stake, respectively, in the firm which has around Rs 91,000 crore in long-term debt.

As per some industry estimates, the company has an urgent liquidity requirement of around Rs 5,000 crore.

Lately, the credit crunch has led a few of the company’s subsidiaries to default in servicing some of the inter-corporate deposits.

Subsequent to defaults, rating agency ICRA downgraded the ratings of its short-term and long-term borrowing programmes.

Earlier on Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters in New Delhi that there had been “significant impact” on the capital market on account of the contagion effect of the IL&FS problem which had prompted the government to replace the Board.

“The government is determined to make sure that since this is an internal factor to India, this should be contained quickly so that no adverse impact of it is left,” he said.

IL&FS Ltd is a core investment company and serves as the holding company of the IL&FS Group, with most business operations domiciled in separate companies which form an ecosystem of expertise across infrastructure, finance and social and environmental services.

Initially promoted by the Central Bank of India (CBI), Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd and the Unit Trust of India, IL&FS was incorporated in 1987.

Over the years, it has inducted institutional shareholders including SBI, LIC, ORIX Corp of Japan and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).

As on March 31, 2018, LIC and ORIX Corp are the largest shareholders in IL&FS with their stakeholding at 25.34 per cent and 23.54 per cent, respectively. Other prominent shareholders include ADIA (12.56 per cent), HDFC (9.02 per cent), CBI (7.67 per cent) and SBI (6.42 per cent).

IANS

With unrelenting increase in fuel prices, the government on Thursday decided to effect a cut in the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 2.50 per litre.

Finance Minsiter Arun Jaitley announced at a press conference that the cut will be effected through slashing of excise duty to the tune of Rs 1.50 per litre, while the oil marketing companies will absorb the impact to the tune of Re 1 per litre.

(IANS)

The Indian rupee plunged to a fresh record low of 73.77 to a US dollar on Thursday morning.

It stood at 73.77 (73.7688) to a dollar — the lowest ever mark — it has touched against the greenback.

It opened the day’s trade at the Inter-Bank Foreign Exchange Market at 73.67 to a dollar from its previous close of 73.34.

At 9.50 a.m., the rupee stood at 73.65 to a greenback.

(IANS)

ICICI Bank said on Thursday that its CEO, Chanda Kochhar, has quit the company.

“The Board of Directors of ICICI Bank Limited, accepted the request of Ms Chanda
Kochhar to seek early retirement from the Bank at the earliest,” the bank said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

(IANS)

The government plans to roll-out a facial recognition-based hassle-free entry system at select airports from February 2019.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has come out with a draft of its “Digi Yatra” policy and called for public comments.

The system has the capability of reducing long queues and the number of security personnel deployed at airports thereby likely bringing down air fares.

(IANS)

Mumbai Global software major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Thursday said it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) at University of Tokyo to collaborate on technology research and facilitate inter-personnel exchange.

The MoU opens the prospect of TCS and the IIS working together on fundamental research, technology validation and the real-world applications and commercialisation of technologies in the area of robotics.

The partnership is the latest addition to TCS’ Co-innovation Network (COIN) which brings together the academia, research, tech start-ups, and alliance partners from across the world to collaborate and conceptualise innovation that helps customers in their digital transformation journeys.

“In a Business 4.0 world, building and leveraging a partner ecosystem is of strategic importance in creating and delivering value. This is the core idea underpinning our Co-Innovation Network that brings research and technology breakthroughs from academia to meet real-world customer needs,” said K. Ananth Krishnan, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, TCS.

The partnership also paves the way for an exchange of scholars and researchers between the two organisations, TCS said in a statement.

“We warmly welcome this strategic partnership with TCS, and see it as one of our gateways to capitalise the wealth of technological expertise that India’s finest talent has to offer,” said Toshiharu Kishi, Director General, IIS, University of Tokyo.

(IANS)