State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has dropped plans to merge its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp ltd (CPCl) with itself, a top company official said. IOC holds 51.89 per cent stake in CPCl and had planned to merge the company with itself like it had done with another subsidiary, Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals ltd (BRPl), more than a decade ago.
But unlike BRPl, CPCl has National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) as a shareholder with a 15.40 per cent stake. IOC was hoping that NIOC may not invest in expansion of CPCl, giving the state-owned retailer a reason to seek the Iranian company's exit. “They (NIOC) have decided to participate in setting up a new 9-million tonne per annum refinery at the Cauvery basin, Nagapattinam, at an estimated cost of Rs 27,460 crore,” he said here. The Iranian company wants to stay invested in CPCl, he said. “We won't like to merge till they are there. If we were to merge CPCl with IOC under the present shareholding, NIOC would get a stake, although small, in IOC.”