New Delhi, Apr 21 (PTI): The government has decided to exempt state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp and Oil India Ltd from paying for subsidy on cooking gas in the current fiscal, petroleum and natural gas secretary Saurabh Chandra said Tuesday.

”Government will fully meet subsidy burden of LPG in 2015-16,” he said at roundtable on hydrocarbons organised here by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry.

The government regulates price of LPG or liquefied petroleum gas and kerosene to shield the poor. The government and upstream producers such as ONGC bear the difference between the cost and the retail price, called under-recoveries.

ONGC, OIL and GAIL, the upstream oil and gas producers, had to bear a portion of the subsidy on LPG, kerosene and diesel till October 2014. They do this by selling crude to the refineries at below-market rates.

After diesel price was deregulated in October 2014, the subsidy sharing was limited to LPG and kerosene.

”Since upstream national oil companies contribution to under-recoveries is reduced, to that extent their resources are freed to invest in exploration and production,” he said.

Chandra said the government has exempted ONGC and OIL from payment of fuel subsidy in the fourth quarter after the finance ministry agreed to meet the revenue loss on fuel sales.   

The finance ministry will pay Rs 5,324 crore in fuel subsidy for the January-March quarter, effectively meeting all revenue that retailers lose on selling domestic LPG and kerosene at government-controlled rates.

Under-recoveries of Rs 67,091 crore in first nine months of the fiscal were fully accounted for by the subsidy support and dole out from upstream firms like ONGC.

The under-recoveries of Rs 5,324 crore for the March quarter are being entirely borne by the government.

The oil secretary said since the government is paying LPG subsidy directly to consumers in their bank accounts under the direct benefit transfer scheme, it has been decided that this will be entirely met from the budget.

ONGC and OIL will have to bear subsidy on only kerosene in 2015-16, he said.

Based on average crude oil price of $60/barrel, LPG subsidy for 2015-16 may be about Rs 18,000 crore and assuming crude at $70/barrel, it could be around Rs 25,000 crore. For kerosene, it will be Rs 13,000 crore at $60/barrel and Rs 16,500 crore at $70 per barrel oil price.

In the first nine months of 2014-15, the government gave cash subsidy of Rs 22,085 crore to meet less than a third of the under-recoveries on cooking fuel and diesel (up to October 17).

ONGC, OIL and GAIL chipped in with Rs 42,822 crore.

The upstream subsidy contribution is by way of discount on crude oil they sell to refineries. With international oil prices almost halving to $57-58 per barrel, providing the subsidy discounts would have meant they got rates way below their cost of production.

ONGC's cost of production is around $40 per barrel. The oil ministry had projected that government will earn Rs 75,944 crore from excise levy on petrol and diesel this fiscal and even after paying for Rs 39,101 crore subsidy (Rs 17,000 crore of first half and Rs 22,101 crore in second half), it will be left with Rs 36,843 crore.