Daily News Roundup - Feb 22 2011

Global oil major BP will buy a 30% stake in Reliance Industries’ oil and gas blocks, including the D-6 block, for US$7.2bn as part of a long-term deal that involves a total investment of US$20bn. (ET)



Idea Cellular may lose overlapping mobile permits in six regions and could end up paying a fine of Rs3bn if the telecom department accepts the recommendations of a top law officer of the government. (ET)

Punj Lloyd through its subsidiary, Punj Lloyd Infrastructure Limited, has bagged an order worth Rs7.4bn from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). (FE)

The Ministry of Environment and Forests has cleared seven to eight more projects of Coal India. (BL)

SAIL plans to put up four 3mtpa manufacturing facilities - one each in Indonesia, Mongolia, South Africa and Oman – at a cumulative investment of US$12bn. (FE)

Tata Motors' Jaguar and Land Rover unit is in talks with Chinese sport utility vehicle maker Great Wall Motor Co about a potential China tie-up. (BS)

Tata Steel expects to start production from a new Orissa plant by end-March 2013. (BS)

The Godrej group could hike soap prices in order to offset rising input costs, particularly those of vegetable oils. (BS)

Unitech Ltd will develop an integrated township at Rewari in Haryana with an estimated construction cost of Rs0.6bn. (BL)

Despite dismissal of legal suits filed against it by Global Vehicles, Mahindra & Mahindra's plan to enter the US market will be further delayed till the outcome of an arbitration process in London later this year. (BS)

Orient Green Power (OGP), a renewable energy venture of the Shriram group, has decided to move its proposed 300MW wind farm project from Tamil Nadu to Maharashtra and Gujarat due to issues relating to evacuation of power. (ET)

Mahindra Satyam’s business process outsourcing arm has renewed contract with NAVTEQ, a global provider of digital map data, for a further period of two years. (ET)

ONGC awarded United Arab Emirates-based National Petroleum Construction (NPCC) an oil contract valued at US$227mn. (ET)

Volkswagen (VW) to sell Maruti’s A-Star after some modifications and design changes in India and other Asian markets under a new brand. (ET)

NMDC is in talks with Tata Steel to sign an equal joint venture for setting up a 2mtpa steel plant at Bastar in Chhattisgarh. (ET)

CBI questioned Videocon group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot, and his brother and Rajya Sabha MP Rajkumar Dhoot in connection with the probe into allocation of spectrum in 2008. (BS)

Apollo Hospitals has scaled down its fund raising plans and only intend to raise Rs6bn through the qualified institutional placement route. (BL)

Amtek Auto has raised Rs1.29bn by preferentially allotting 7.2mn shares upon conversion of warrants at Rs180 each to promoter group companies. (BS)

Canara Bank opened 35 branches across the country, taking the total number of branches to 3,212. (BS)
Economy Snippets

The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (PMEAC) projected the economy to grow at 8.6% in 2010-11 and 9 per cent in 2011-12. It also said monetary and fiscal policies have to be "appropriately tightened" to protect the economy from inflation. (BL)

Domestic airlines have registered a drop of 5% in the number of passengers carried in January this year at 4.94mn compared to December 2010. However, in comparison with January 2010, air traffic has grown by almost 21%.(ET)

Inflows through various non-resident Indian, or NRI, deposit schemes plunged 34% in nine months to December to US$2.3bn from US$3.5bn a year earlier. (ET)

The Indian Railways has eased conditions for firms to procure and lease rail wagons to other businesses in an attempt to make its three-year-old Wagon Leasing Scheme more attractive for the private sector. (ET)

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance Chairman Yashwant Sinha wants the government to first introduce goods and services tax (GST) at the central level and set example for states to implement the indirect tax reform. (BS)

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority will come out with guidelines for mergers and acquisitions for the industry over the next two-three months, while the IPO norms will be out in the next 15-20 days. (BS)

The cement industry is expected to add 23.3mn tons of capacity in 2011-12. (BL)

ICRA expects healthy growth in demand for fertilizers, especially phosphatic and other complex fertilizers, due to promotion of a more balanced nutrient consumption with the new nutrient—based subsidy (NBS) policy of the Union government. (BL)

India's mining Bill which plans to make miners pay 26% of profits to local communities will be brought to parliament in this session. (BS)