The petroleum ministry has sought additional oil bonds worth about Rs 13,000 crore (Rs 130 billion) to cover the revenue loss on fuel sale in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal.
The government has for the first three quarters sanctioned oil bonds worth Rs 60,967 crore (Rs 609.67 billion) to IndianOil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum to make the good revenue loss on sale of petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene.
"Of these, so far Rs 50,980 crore (Rs 509.80 billion) worth of bonds have been issued and the rest will be issued after Parliament approves them next week," a petroleum ministry official said.
For the fiscal 2008-09, the total revenue loss on selling the four products below cost has been estimated at Rs 105,860 crore (Rs 1,058.60 billion). Of this, Rs 32,000 crore (Rs 320 billion) has been met by upstream companies like ONGC by way of discounts on crude oil it sells to the three fuel retailers.
"To cover the remaining (loss), we have written to the Finance Ministry for issuing additional bonds worth about Rs 13,000 crore," the official said.
Oil bonds for the fourth quarter will be issued in Q1 of the next fiscal after actual accounting for actual revenue loss figures.
Upstream firms Oil & Natural Gas Corp, GAIL India and Oil India Ltd will not have to bear any more subsidy in the fourth quarter as they have already given their share of Rs 32,000 crore.
The three fuel retailers currently make a profit of Rs 1.30 a litre on petrol and Rs 2.26 per litre on diesel. However, they continue to lose money on kerosene and LPG -- Rs 11.70 a litre and Rs 77.51 per cylinder, respectively.
On all four products put together, they are losing Rs 10 crore per day. On petrol and diesel they make Rs 56 crore (Rs 560 million) per day but on LPG and kerosene they lose Rs 66 crore (Rs 660 million) everyday, the official said.
