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Mr Pradhan also informed that he is pitching with the ministry of finance to cut cess on domestically produced crude oil to provide life to companies like ONGC.
NEW DELHI, 3 AUGUST 2016: Dharmendra Pradhan, Oil Minister informed that his ministry is not considering any proposal to merge 13 oil PSUs like Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and GAIL to create a behemoth.
"It was just an idea which was reportedly mooted by a Director of a state-owned company and like all ideas have to be debated, we are debating it," Pradhan said.
However, Mr Pradhan also informed that he is pitching with the ministry of finance to cut cess on domestically produced crude oil to provide life to companies like ONGC.
His ministry has 13 PSUs ranging from upstream oil producers like ONGC and Oil India to downstream oil refining and fuel marketing firms IOC, BPCL and HPCL to gas transporter GAIL India Ltd to engineering firm Engineers India Ltd.
Top eight listed state-owned oil and gas companies have a combined market capitilisation of about $80 billion, making it the ninth largest globally.
"It should be according to market dynamics," he said, adding that he has asked the Ministry of Finance to look into request by oil producers like ONGC and Cairn India to reduce cess.
In the Budget for 2016-17, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had moved from a fixed Rs 4,500 per tonne cess on domestically produced crude oil to a percentage of oil prices or ad valorem rate of 20 per cent.