ONGC may acquire HPCL in  $6.6 bn deal

New Delhi : A huge merger in oil cos in cards as State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) may acquire India’s third-biggest fuel retailer HPCL in an about Rs 44,000 crore. 

The merger will be carried out as part of the government’s plan to create an integrated oil giant.

Following up on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget announcement of creating an integrated oil company, India’s biggest oil and gas producer ONGC may buy all of the government’s 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL.

This will have to be followed by an open offer to acquire additional 26 per cent from other shareholders of HPCL.

There are only six major companies in the sector - ONGC and Oil India Ltd being the oil producers, Indian Oil Corp (IOC), HPCL and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) in refinery business and GAIL in midstream gas transportation business.

The rest such as ONGC Videsh, Chennai Petroleum Corp (CPCL), Numaligarh Refinery Ltd and Mangalore Refinery (MRPL) are already subsidiaries of one of these six PSUs.