Facing flak for slashing natural gas supplies to fuel-starved power plants across the country so that requirement of one station in Maharashtra can be met, the Oil Ministry has kept in abeyance its order diverting Reliance Industries' (RIL) KG-D6 gas to Dabhol plant. The ministry had on August 1 ordered RIL to use dwindling KG-D6 gas field output to first meet full demand of Dabhol power plant and supply any remaining output among two dozen other power plants, a decision that drew sharp protests from Andhra Pradesh that faced a 400 MW shortage due to the move. KG-D6 is currently producing about 28.76 million cubic meters per day as against projected 80 mmcmd output for this time of the year. As per the government order, the output is first used to meet the entire requirement of urea-making fertiliser plants, which drew 15.3 mmcmd of gas.

State-run Coal India (CIL) has invited expression of interest for appointing consultants to help the coal PSU form a subsidiary in South Africa to acquire mines as it continues to face acute shortage of the fossil fuel. CIL has signed pact with the government of Limpopo, South Africa, for jointly identifying, exploring and developing coal mines. Last year, the government of Limpopo, the northernmost province of South Africa, had approached CIL requesting it to form a joint venture with one of its public sector firms for acquiring coal mines there. Besides, CIL will revise its fuel supply pact with power units commissioned after December 2009 to include new agreed clauses, which involve higher penalty for short supply. The monopoly miner has so far signed fuel supply agreements (FSAs) with 29 such power units. These FSAs will be converted to the new format, which was arrived at Coal India's board meeting.

Lockout in the Manesar unit of Maruti Suzuki is costing the company over Rs 90 crore per day, industry body Assocham claimed. It also stated that the lockout is affecting over 650 units and has threatened closure of many ancillaries in the 60 km Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera belt employing nearly one million workers. About 270 auto component vendors, too, are facing losses. However, according to Maruti Suzuki, the plant rolls out about 1,600 units per day and in terms of value, the daily loss to the company is about Rs 70 crore (excluding excise). T he company had declared a lockout at its Manesar plant after the July 18 violence in which a senior executive was killed and several others were injured.

Realty company DLF plans to roll out new residential projects at Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Panipat and Kasauli as part of company's strategy to strengthen its presence outside Gurgaon. Though the company has not finalised the business plans entailing the investment detail in these projects, the company is in the process of carrying out study to ascertain demand for real estate projects in these markets. DLF, which has already invested Rs 2,000 crore in northern region on various real estate projects, has 25 acres of land in Ludhiana, 50 acres in Jalandhar, 12 acres in Panipat and 325 bighas at Kasauli.

The Rs 3,000-crore investment for full-fledged coal-bed methane production from the Ranigunj block by Essar Oil needs more acres of land. The company needs around 1,000 acres to drill 500 wells, which it plans to do in the next 18 months. The company has 180 acres and has drilled 85 wells for exploration. With the current land, the company can drill another 70-75 wells and to drill 400 to 500 wells for full fledged production of CBM it needs more land. On the other hand, the land prices had soared by 10 times since 2006 and the company is facing issues in direct negotiations with farmers along with pricing. The West Bengal government has decided not to acquire land for any project. However, resolving the 14Y clause from the land acquisition act will allow the company to acquire land directly.

Kingfisher Airlines yesterday cancelled over 30 flights from Delhi and Mumbai due to a strike by a section of its employees protesting non-payment of salary. While 22 flights of the airline were cancelled from Delhi, nine were cancelled from Mumbai. A section of its employees, including pilots and engineers are not reporting for work to protest non-payment of salary. Meanwhile, the board of the near-bankrupt airlines is meeting in New Delhi to discuss finances ahead of the announcement of quarterly results. Kingfisher Airlines, which has been facing fund-crunch for almost a year now, has not paid salary to its staff for the past five months. A sizeable number of its employees have not been paid since February.

Aurobindo Pharma is eyeing to garner at least 25% of its annual revenues from the custom research and manufacturing (Crams) business in the next 4-5 years, a strategy drawn to hedge itself against probable dwindling revenues from the US market once it goes off patent from 2016 onwards. At present, the company gets no revenue from the Crams business but saw the first contract materialising last year. AuroSource, the custom research and manufacturing division of Aurobindo Pharma, is looking at long term contracts from Big Pharma and work with emerging pharma companies on new molecules. The Crams business has better margins than generic drugs sales. Aurobindo Pharma is the second Indian drug maker to indicate that it is expecting revenue growth in the US to decline from next year as patent expiries peaked this year.

Shree Hari Chemical Export has received approval from the High Court to run its Raigad plant on 50% capacity for three weeks under the supervision of Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and National Environmental Engineering Institute (NEERI).  The company had earlier closed down manufacturing activities at its factory at A/8 MIDC Mahad Dist. Raigad (Maharashtra) since February 28, 2012, as per directions of Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. Shree Hari Chemicals Export is a customer driven company with the vision to become one of the largest maufacturer of H-Acid in the world. SHCEL has customer base in India and in international market like Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan, Bangladesh, USA, Canada, Australia, Newzealand, Italy, Dubai UK, France etc.

NIIT Institute of Finance, Banking & Insurance Training (IFBI), India's largest banking training institute, has declared the second National Banking Entrance Test (NBET) for their Post Graduate programs from August 8-30, 2012. The post graduate banking programs offered under NBET is Post Graduate Diploma in Banking Operations (PGDBO), Post Graduate Diploma in retail Banking (PGDRB) and Bank Vantage Career programs. Graduate/post graduates or MBA's in any discipline with minimum 50% marks are eligible to apply for the NBET. The final year graduation students born on or after August 1, 1986 are also eligible for the entrance test. The applicants can either visit IFBI centre or can apply online by submitting application form at www.ifbi.com.