“The merger has been doing rounds for last several years but has failed to get concensus. It would need to be seen how it progresses from here,” said industry expert. (Photo: Representational Image/AFP)

New Delhi: The government has set in motion its plan to create an energy sector behemoth in the country by merging some of the 13 state-owned oil firms to rival global oil and gas giants such as BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, CNPC and bag larger share of global energy to meet the needs of world's third largest oil consumer.

More than 12 years after a proposal to merge oil PSUs was first mooted by the then oil minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, finance minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget for 2017-18 proposed to “create an integrated public sector ‘oil major’ which will be able to match the performance of international and domestic private sector oil and gas companies.”

While the finance minister did not spell out more details about the proposed merger of oil PSUs, sources said that the oil ministry would now set up a committee to examine the feasibility of the exercise and based on its recommendations go about creating a large public sector oil and gas behemoth with presence in both upstream and downstream activities.

Experts have already called the proposed merger a monumental exercise that would be difficult to implement given the work culture of different PSUs. “The merger has been doing rounds for last several years but has failed to get concensus. It would need to be seen how it progresses from here,” said industry expert.