JUNE 20239TOP STORYGOVERNMENT TO OFFLOAD THREE PERCENT STAKE IN COAL INDIA VIA OFS ROUTEINDIA'S RUSSIAN OIL BUY IS NOW MORE THAN SAUDI, UAE, IRAQ & US COMBINEDThe government proposes to offload three percent stake in Coal India Limited (CIL) through the offer for sale (OFS) route. The offer will open on June 1 for non-retail investors, while retail investors can bid for it on June 2.The divestment of the Centre's three percent equity also includes a Green Shoe option of 1.5 percent. The size of the OFS is around Rs.4,000 crore, and its floor price is set at Rs.225 per share. This is at a discount of nearly seven percent from Coal India's current market price.The proposal is to offload 9.24 crore shares amounting to a stake of 1.5 percent in the coal producer. Besides, there will be a green shoe option for selling an equal amount of stake in case of over-subscription, CIL said in a regulatory filing.Under the OFS route, promoters in public companies can sell their shares and reduce their holdings in a transparent manner through the bidding platform for the exchanges. India currently imports more cheap Russian oil than it does from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States combined. According to data from energy cargo tracker Vortexa, India imported 1.96 million barrels per day from Russia in May, 15 percent more than the previous peak in April. Currently, imports from Russia exceed total purchases from Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined. The US, the UAE, and India have been the three main providers in the past ten years.In May, Iraq delivered 0.83 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), while the UAE sent 203,000 bpd. The data showed that up to 138,000 bpd was imported from the US. Nearly 42 percent of the crude oil that India imported in May is currently supplied by Russia. The percentage is the greatest for a single nation in recent years. Russian market share increased at the expense of dependable Middle Eastern suppliers. According to data from the shipping analytics business, shipments from Saudi Arabia decreased to 560,000 tonnes, the lowest level since February 2021.In May, the proportion of the oil-producing cartel OPEC in India's oil imports reached a record low of 39 percent Up to 90 percent of the crude oil that India imported at one point came from Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), primarily in the Middle East and Africa, but this percentage has been declining ever since Russian oil became more affordable following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.
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