ONGC could be out of race for acquisition of stake in HPL

18-Sep-13

A new twist has been seen in the divestment process of Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL), as Reliance Industries (RIL) and GAIL oppose a joint bidding proposal from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and India Oil (IOC), forcing ONGC to pull out from the race to acquire the West Bengal government’s 31% share. WBIDC was considering to allow ONGC and IOC to jointly bid but it dropped the idea after RIL and GAIL opposed it. RIL made its opposition known after its request for an open auction was rejected by the state. A top official of WBIDC said: “The EoI (expression of interest) mentioned standalone bidding. It could have been amended to allow joint bidding but that would have resulted into another round of legal challenges. After Essar Oil, ONGC is the second company to pullout from the stake sale process. The current contenders include RIL, IOC, GAIL and Cairn India to acquire the state government’s stake in HPL.