COMPANIES

Petronet to buy gas from Exxon's Australian project
Mumbai: Petronet LNG Ltd has signed a draft agreement with Exxon Mobil Corp to buy liquefied natural gas from Australia's Gorgon project.

Reports quoting Petronet chief executive and managing director Prosad Dasgupta said the two companies had agreed early last month on all details but pricing, and the deal should cover purchases of 2.5 million tonnes of LNG a year for a period of 25 years.

Chevron Corp holds a 50 per cent stake in the project, while Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell Plc each have 25 per cent.

The supply of gas from Gorgon is expected to begin from the end of 2012, Dasgupta said.
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Over 500 companies apply for telecom licences
Mumbai: The department of telecom (DoT) has received over 500 applications for telecom licences as the deadline ended today.
A number of biggies, including AT&T, Hindujas, DLF, Sterlite and Videocon jumped into the fray to tap the world's fastest growing cellular market.

The figure may go beyond 500 as the DoT is still counting the applications received from various companies.

Nearly 200 applications are estimated to have been submitted today. The DoT would screen the applicants once a committee appointed by communications minister A Raja comes up with fresh guidelines detailing the minimum net worth, ownership and other crucial aspects of the applicants.

The companies that have sought licences include property developers Parsvnath, Unitech, Indiabulls Real Estate, Omaxe and DLF. Besides, Allianz Infratech, Shyam Telecom, HFCL, BPL, Cheetah, DataCom, Stel, Swan Telecom, Tulip, JSW Steel and Bycell have also applied. Ispat Industries, Sify, Moser Baer and Dalmia group are also believed to have put in applications.

US firm AT&T tied up with diversified group Mahindras and Hinduja Group applied through its subsidiary HTMT Telecom.
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Bharti Airtel plans DTH roll-out as telecom subscriber base swells to 50 million
Mumbai: Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's top mobile service provider, plans to launch a direct-to-home television service by the end of fiscal 2008, Akhil Gupta, joint managing director, said.

Bharti also said its customer base has crossed the 50-million mark to make it the 10th largest player in the global telecom industry.

"Our next target is to reach the 100-million mark by 2010," the company's chief executive Manoj Kohli said at a press conference in New Delhi, adding that the wireless segment contributed 96 per cent of the total base with 47.99 million customers.
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GENERAL

Government not to regulate rupee movements
Mumbai: The government has ruled out regulating the rupee movement, but said it will increase refund of both state and central taxes to help exporters out of the currency related crisis.

"We do not calibrate rupee but our government will meet different export promotion councils in the next two-three days and see how we can refund some of the state level and central taxes... to exporters,'' commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath told reporters at an export award function.

The Indian currency has appreciated by over seven per cent in the first six months of the current financial year. The rupee appreciation has hit exporters' margins and the growth in exports has drastically come down from an average 24 per cent last year to 18 per cent.
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Left relaxes deadline over nuclear deal; asks government to wait until November-end
Mumbai: The Left partners of the ruling UPA, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has relaxed its warning to the government over the nuclear pact with the United States, urging it be put it on hold until parliament convenes at the end of next month.

The new deadline by the or CPI(M), which has opposed the landmark deal and threatened to withdraw crucial support to the government over it, came at the end of four days of talks among its top leadership.

The party had last month asked the government not to pursue the deal for six months and warned of a political crisis if it went ahead. But prime minister Manmohan Singh's government had refused to buckle under threat.
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