Moneycontrol | No plans at present to sell stake in BPCL: Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri

Sep 15,2022

Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday indicated that privatization of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is not going to happen in the near future. He said that no such proposal is yet under consideration with the government. Finance Minister Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad also said in a statement that most of the eligible interested parties have expressed their inability to continue with the current process of

disinvestment of BPCL.

Explain that the central government had proposed to sell its stake in BPCL in November 2019 under its Asset Monetization Scheme. At that time the government had said that it would raise money by selling its 52.98 per cent stake in the state-owned petroleum company.

The government had received three initial bids for BPCL, but only Vedanta Group made the financial bid. In such a situation, the government had to announce its plan to privatize BPCL in May 2022.

When asked about the government's upcoming plan for privatization of BPCL, Hardeep Singh Puri said,"The bidding process is adopted to increase the competition. But when there will be only one bidder, then how can this process be done? You are aware that not only does the administrative ministries carry out the process of selling stake in government companies, but it also involves the department of finance ministry 'DIPAM'. As far as my knowledge is concerned, at present no proposal for sale of BPCL is under consideration.

Meanwhile, shares of BPCL closed at Rs 331.55, down 1.37% on NSE today. In the last one month, the company's shares have fallen by 4.15 percent, while in the last one year, about 24.48 percent have fallen.

The process will start again when the righttime comes Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad had told in a written reply in Parliament on August 8 that the central government would take a decision on resuming the disinvestment process of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) at the right time. This decision will be taken on the basis of the conditions at that time.

Karad said, “The Government of India had decided to withdraw the Expression of Interest (EoI) issued for strategic disinvestment in BPCL. A decision on
resuming the process of strategic disinvestment of BPCL will be taken on the basis of review of the situation in due course.