ONGC has until now been a zero-debt company and this is will be the first time ever that the company will be going in for borrowing to finance its investment.

The Bharti Airtel stock closed 1.29 percent or 6.35 points higher at 499.15 level ahead of its Q2 earnings to be announced today. Meanwhile, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) is likely to buy Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) in a share-swap deal to become country's second-largest oil refiner.

Kicking off the process for sale of HPCL stake to ONGC, the government has invited bids for appointing merchant bankers and legal consultants for the Rs 28,000-crore deal.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will head a 3-member ministerial panel to oversee and expedite the sale of government stake in oil refiner HPCL to explorer ONGC, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp will buy government's 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL but will not have to make an open offer as the government's holding is being transferred to another state-run firm and the ownership isn't changing.

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), ministry of finance, has moved the proposal for consideration of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), said the source who could not be named because the information is not public.

RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani and BP Group Chief Executive Bob Dudley are speaking at a media interaction after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.

With Tehran delaying the award of rights to develop the 12.5 trillion cubic feet gas field to its discoverer -- ONGC Videsh Ltd -- India decided to cut oil imports from Iran by a fifth in 2017-18.

Indian benchmark indices opened flat, with a negative bias, tracking muted global cues.

The volume cuts would put India's imports of Iranian crude for this fiscal year at 370,000 barrels per day.

While the Sensex rose 195 points to 25,960 level, the Nifty rose 73 points to close above the 8,000 level at 8,002 points.

Government has formally granted a licence to BP Plc, Europe's third-biggest oil company, to set up 3,500 petrol pumps in India, making it the 10th company to enter the lucrative fuel retailing sector.

MRPL shipped in 2 million barrels of Iranian oil in the VLCC Dino. India will fill half of the storage with 6 million barrels of Iranian oil while continuing talks with United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for the remainder.

Such purchases by the world's No.3 crude importer would boost Iran's drive to ramp up its oil shipments as it looks to regain market share following the lifting of sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme.

India's daily oil imports from Iran in August surged to their highest in at least 15 years as the OPEC producer boosted its shipments to recoup market share ceded to rivals Saudi Arabia and Iraq under pressure from economic sanctions.

State-owned MRPL, which operates a 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) coastal refinery in southern India, will shut the gasoil unit from the first week of next month for about two to three weeks, they said.

Country's oil imports from Iran fell 3.5 per cent in May from the previous month as Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd cut purchases because of the shutdown of some units at its plant.

India is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian crude and built up a payments backlog when Iran was under Western sanctions, with its refiners owing about $6.5 billion to Iran.

India has sought a discovered oilfield from Iran for raising crude oil imports from the Persian Gulf nation as part of efforts to widen economic and energy ties post lifting of sanctions.