Citing an anonymous senior ministry official the India Times stated, “The idea behind adopting the consortium approach is primarily to stop PSU oilcos from working against each other’s interests in the same fields.”

“But this may not go down well with the oil companies which have drawn up extensive plans of expanding their businesses, many a times at cross purposes,” added the source.

Petronet LNG is a consortium of made up of state-run firm Indian Oil Corp, Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and Gail India. The move comes on the back of petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar’s previous declarations he wanted to merge India’s state oil firms to create a strong national oil company.