New Delhi: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is not in a hurry to sell its stake in Indian Oil Corp and GAIL (India) and will wait for the right price before offloading the shares, a senior company official said. ONGC holds 13.77 per cent stake in oil refiner IOC and 4.86 per cent in gas utility GAIL India.
“It is true that we are now a fully integrated company. We are India’s largest oil and gas producer and the acquisition of (oil refiner) HPCL has extended our presence in the downstream industries. “And so naturally, it now does not make sense for ONGC to hold stake in Indian Oil Corp (IOC). But, we will wait for the right price,” said the official. ONGC, he said, got over Rs 3,000 crore in dividend income from investments in IOC and GAIL in 2017-18 financial year.
“This is a decent return on capital and can help me hold on to shares for long,” he said. “I am in no hurry to sell the stake. We will wait for the right price.” ONGC’s 13.77 per cent stake in IOC at Monday’s closing price of Rs 153.80 apiece on BSE is worth over Rs 20,500 crore. Its 4.86 per cent stake in GAIL is worth close to Rs 4,200 crore at Monday’s closing price of Rs 380.75. “IOC shares were trading at around Rs 195 in January and are now at Rs 153-154. It doesn’t make sense to sell the shares at such a big loss,” the official said.
ONGC, he said, is generating enough surplus mainly because of international oil prices spiking to four-year high and the rupee plummeting to an all-time low. It is using these to pay off Rs 24,881 crore loan it had taken to buy Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) for Rs 36,915 crore.