petrol price will touch Rs 70 a litre

Petrol prices are expected to rise by Rs10-20 a litre as the government is considering decontrol of fuel prices, a move that may relieve public sector oil marketing companies of the burden of subsidised sales that have cost them over Rs200,000 crore in lost revenues.
With the price of crude oil touching an all-time high of $135 a barrel in the international markets, the government is weighing plans to decontrol petrol prices while keeping some subsidies on diesel, cooking gas and kerosene.
"One of the options being considered is deregulating petrol prices," a petroleum ministry official said, adding, "The country's preferred auto fuel diesel will, however, continue to be subsidised even though a marginal Rs2-3 a litre hike in prices may be announced."
With petrol, currently being sold at a loss of Rs16.34 a litre and diesel at a loss of Rs23.49 per litre, a hike in petrol prices would mean that it will cost around Rs70 a litre in a metros like Mumbai.
Deregulating petrol price is the one option being considered after the finance ministry turned down petroleum ministry's request for withdrawing the five per cent customs duty on crude oil and that on petrol and diesel to 2.5 per cent from current 7.5 per cent.
The ministry had also sought lowering of excise duty on the two fuels but finance ministry is in no mood to oblige, the official said.
Petroleum ministry officials also content that unlike diesel, which is widely consumed by goods transporters, a rise in petrol prices will only have negligible or little impact on inflation and price deregulation would not add to the already high inflation rate.
However, deregulating petrol would lower the revenue losses of oil marketing companies by just Rs20,000 crore.
State-run oil firms, meanwhile, have raised the security deposit for new cooking gas (LPG) connections by Rs400 to Rs1,250 per cylinder.
Indian Oil(IOC), Bharat Petroleum(BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum(HPCL) raised refundable security deposit for new connections to Rs1,250 per cylinder from Rs850 due to rise in the cost of steel, which is used as an input, an industry official said.

geojit results 2.06 times higher & Rs0.70 dividend/share

Geojit Financial Services, a leading retail stock broking company, announced on Friday the consolidated net profit zoomed 2.06 times to Rs 118.20 million in the fourth quarter ended March 2008 as compared with Rs 57.40 million in the same quarter, a year ago. The consolidated revenues for the quarter surged 78% to Rs 643.5 million compared with Rs 361.4 million in the same quarter, last year.
Stock broking firm Geojit Financial Services on Friday said the company's board has approved the offer from French banking major BNP Paribas to acquire a 35 per cent stake in one of its subsidiaries.
The board has also recommended a final dividend of 70%, or Rs 0.70 a share of the face value of Re 1 a share for the financial year 2007-08, subject to the approval of the shareholders of the company at the ensuing annual general meeting of the company.

Petrol and diesel prices raised marginally

Crude oil hits $135/barrel because of that Petrol and diesel prices have been raised marginally by 3-5 paise per litre after the government decided to hike the commission paid to dealers for the sale of fuel.Dealers' commission effective midnight will be Rs 28 per kilolitre for petrol and Rs 31 per kilolitre for diesel, an Indian Oil Corporation official said.
The effect of the increase in the commission will be rise in prices of petrol and diesel, effective midnight(May23)

KGN Industries went upto Rs. 55,000

After 7 yearsof suspension KGN Industries listed in BSE on wednesday.Initially it was opened at Rs 100 and after sometiome it went up to Rs 55,000.no one knows what happened to that stock,that too the volume was too low 827 only.Someone was surely playing funny on a day when trading in KGN shares resumed after the revocation of a suspension order issued in 2001, and when there were no circuit filters applicable. Individual shareholders have a stake of just 1.43% (or 3.18 lakh shares) in KGN. Almost half, or 49%, is held by the promoter group.
Another 49.5% is with domestic corporate bodies. Anyone could have bought and sold.
After opening at Rs 100 and briefly holding at those levels, the scrip zoomed to an all-time high at Rs 55,000 per share. That's 76,288% more than its intra-day low of Rs 72. It closed the day at Rs 15,001. All this activity was on volumes of just 827 shares, and before trading in the counter was stopped at 12.20 pm.
For FY '08, KGN reported a profit of Rs 1.51 crore, which puts its earnings per share at Rs 0.68.