New Delhi: Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, said on Thursday that BPCL disinvestment is not on the table as of now. Earlier, the Centre had said that a decision on re-initiating the privatisation of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) will be taken based on a review of the situation in due course.
While responding to a question in the Parliament, Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Dr Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad had said that the pandemic, energy transition issues and geo-political conditions affected several industries globally, particularly the oil and gas industry. "A majority of Qualified Interested Parties have expressed inability to continue in the current process of disinvestment of BPCL," he had said.
In May this year, the government had formally withdrawn its plan to sell its entire 52.98 percent stake in BPCL, saying that a majority of bidders had expressed their inability to participate in the current privatisation process due to the prevailing conditions in the global energy market.
The privatisation process was stalled as two out of three bidders walked out over issues like lack of clarity in fuel pricing. Anil Agarwal's Vedanta, US venture funds Apollo Global Management Inc and I Squared Capital Advisors had expressed interest in picking up the Centre's stake in BPCL.
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