(FE)
Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said the PM Narendra Modi led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government would create a framework in order to integrate public-sector oil companies, adding that the government had asked the industry to come up with a successful model in this regard soon. Integrating exploration and production companies with oil marketing companies would allow them to complement one another, Pradhan said in an interview to CNBC-TV18. “We propose to create an integrated public sector ‘oil major’ which will be able to match the performance of international and domestic private sector oil and gas companies,” finance minister Arun Jaitley had said in his budget speech on February 1. Thereafter, however, indications have come from the government that it may not be looking at a single oil giant but more than one large integrated companies.
