Sources report that state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's (ONGC) is coming with 13,000 crore public offering in the market on March 15. This decision was taken in a meeting where many officials of ONGC were present including disinvestment secretary Sumit Bose and petroleum secretary S Sundareshan.

Government officials after completing the meeting announced that the first road show will be held on February 2 in Chennai while the FPO will hit the market on March 15.

ONGC is the India's highest profit earning firm and last year Union Cabinet has decided to sell 5% of government stake, making the government shareholdings from 74.14% to 69.14%.

FPO will be taken care by Bank of America Corp, Nomura Holdings, HSBC Holdings Plc, JM Financial Services, Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley, as appointed by government.

Currently, ONGC has six functional directors, in addition to the chairman and managing director. There are two nominee directors appointed by government. ONGC board needs to appoint five more independent directors in addition to four independent directors, as per the guidelines listed by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

After recruiting these five independent directors, just about mid-February, ONGC can file prospectus for the FPO.

There was a delay in submitting the financial results for the third quarter ended December by Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) because they wish for the finance ministry to release the subsidy amount soon. Oil marketers are selling fuel below their cost and without these subsidies they will incur heavy losses for the quarter.

As per rule, ONGC's Equity shares of face value RS 10 have to be split into two shares of Rs 5 each. In addition to this ONGC also need to issue a free share to every shareholder.

Sources also revealed that in addition to IOC other two state-run oil companies will also delay their results, namely, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL).

HPCL in a meeting mentioned the same reason as mentioned by IOC for their deferred results. They are also waiting for the subsidy by the finance ministry. They have to announce the results by Jan 27.

In the first half of the fiscal year the finance ministry had released a subsidy of Rs 13,000 crore to cover part losses. But now Oil ministry is again asking finance ministry to release another Rs 10,000 crore as subsidy to cover the under-recoveries in the third quarter.

It has been said earlier by the finance ministry that it will not bear more than 33% of the subsidy.