HPCL Refinery In FDI Tussle

For nine years HPCL has been trying to build a refinery at Bhatinda and it thought that it had the perfect partner in LN Mittal. But there''s a major problem, a cap of 26 per cent on overseas investment.Now the government has two options. Either raise the FDI cap from 26 per cent to 49 per cent or raise money from the market.NDTV spoke to the HPCL management and the CMD Arun Balakrishnan said, HPCL has no comment to offer on the issue as the company is not aware about the DPE suggestion.

The Department of Public Enterprises is in charge of state owned companies and wants to test Indian markets first.Meanwhile, the refinery cost has nearly doubled in nine years to Rs 17,973 crore. But HPCL is working hard on its funding options, which include raising debt in India and abroad. HPCL would have to hurry to raise money from the public because nobody knows how long the party on India''s equity markets is going to last.