State-run refiner Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) said its board has approved a proposal to take almost complete ownership of Petronet CCK Ltd.
BPCL will acquire Petronet India Ltd's 26 per cent stake in Petronet CCK for Rs 78.60 crore ($11.81 million) to increase its holding to 99.96 per cent. The remaining stake is held by financial institutions, it said in a statement.
Petronet CCK operates a 292.5-km-long pipeline to transport petroleum products from Kochi in Kerala to Karur in Tamil Nadu via Coimbatore. The pipeline’s installed capacity is 3.3 million metric tonnes a year. It began commercial operation in 2002.
BPCL had initially invested Rs 49 crore for a 49 per cent stake in the equity capital of Petronet CCK. It acquired an additional 19.97 per cent stake in the pipeline operator from a financial investor in May 2015, according to BPCL’s annual report for 2014-15.
Petronet CCK’s revenue rose to Rs 98.27 crore in 2014-15 from Rs 92.91 crore the year before. Net profit fell to Rs 42.96 crore from Rs 44.54 crore.
BPCL also said its board has approved a proposal to seek shareholders' consent for increasing the ceiling of investment by foreign institutional investors from 24 per cent up to 49 per cent in one or more tranches.
Recently, BPCL and two other state-owned companies--Oil India Ltd and Indian Oil Corp--agreed to acquire a 30 per cent stake from Russia's Rosneft in Taas-Yuriakh oilfield in East Siberia for about $1.3 billion (about Rs 8,750 crore).
