The Chennai Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has directed the resolution professional (RP) to convene a special lenders’ committee meeting to consider the revival bid of Citax Energy for Nagarjuna Oil Corporation Ltd. (NOCL), which was rejected earlier due to a technical issue.
The development comes as an lifeline for the 6-million tonne petroleum refinery project in Cuddalore which was facing liquidation after three rounds of bidding in March and April did not throw up any revival bid acceptable to the lenders.
BPCL, Haldia Petrochem, GP Global, Dubai, and Citax Energy, Dubai were in the fray. A consortium of 14 PSU banks, led by IDBI and SBI, had recommended the liquidation of NOCL to NCLT’s Chennai Bench, after the 270-day timeframe for a revival plan ended on April 20.
Bank guarantee issues
However, according to sources, Citax Energy moved the tribunal stating its bids were not considered in the lenders’ meetings on April 17 and April 19, because of a technical issue with regard to submission of bank guarantee of ₹10 crore.
NCLT has agreed to the request and has directed the RP to convene a special lenders’ meeting to consider its revival bid for NOCL and update the status by May 23. Accordingly, a meeting has been fixed for May 9, sources said. Two other bidders, Haldia Petrochem of Kolkata and GP Global of UAE have also rushed to NCLT with similar petitions for a direction to the RP to reconsider their rejected bids. The RP had strongly objected to it and NCLT has asked both the firms to wait till May 23.
NOCL was jointly promoted in 1998 by the Nagarjuna Fertiliser Group of Hyderabad and the T.N. government’s arm TIDCO.
After several delays, cost escalations, natural disasters and cash crunch, NOCL was brought under the insolvency resolution process in July 2017 by a vendor whose dues were unpaid by the company.
