ONGC disinvestment news is the only encouraging one for oil & gas sector: UR Bhat

UR Bhat, MD, Dalton Capital Advisors in an interview with ET Now talks about the oil and gas sector.

What would you do with oil and gas sector now?

The only news that might be encouraging is that there might be this disinvestment in ONGC, so therefore, they will have to do something in terms of some props for the sector. They have to do it over a few months if not this month but that’s the only thing that gives hope that something more may be forthcoming other than what has been stated in the budget but other than that, really there is nothing.

Of course if you are an optimistic and always say that because there is not so much of allocation done for oil subsidies, so therefore, there might be deregulation on the way and maybe even diesel might be deregulated, kerosene might be deregulated. This is for the eternal optimist but otherwise sheer impracticality.

Why an eternal optimist, why not a realistic optimist because the Finance Minister has made some provisions, he pretty much knows that how oil subsidy works, so obviously he could really spring in a surprise?

That is what I said, an eternal optimist can always hope for that but anyway most of the subsidies, especially on oil is on a cash basis. You stop the quarterly results coming out of oil marketing companies and then say ‘okay, here is one more instalment’, so it is the same stop and go sort of arrangement that we will see over the next few quarter.