India’s government is about to initiate talks to merge 13 state-run oil companies into one giant conglomerate, India’s Economic Times said on Monday, citing sources familiar with the situation.
The Indian government discussed the idea to create a big state oil company back in 2005, but it had no progress. Currently, the oil ministry has started to assess the prospects of a mega-merger.
According to the source, the country’s biggest oil producer, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), as well as Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum, GAIL, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL), Chennai Petroleum, Numaligarh Refinery, and Oil India will be the subjects of the merger.
Experts say that market cap of the new company could exceed the market value of Russia’s Rosneft. At the moment, the market capitalization of the six top Indian oil companies is estimated at $77 billion, while Rosneft‘s market value is at $55 billion.
