Published on August 29, 2018

Petroleum Minister on Monday said that the government wants state-run Gail (India) to exit its petrochemical business.

On the other hand, contrary to the earlier reports of hiving off the company's marketing division, the Gail board is planning to have marketing and pipeline segments to be "independent and autonomous with separate balance sheets".

"The Gail board has approached the government saying that they are working on a similar proposal to have separate segments for pipeline and marketing. We want Gail to exit petrochemical business gradually and focus on its core area that is pipeline," Pradhan said.

Under the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act, marketing and transmission functions should not be performed by the same entity, so that there is no conflict of interest. This is so especially because companies like Gail are in a position to push their gas on priority, given that they also run pipelines as transmission entities.