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Reliance seeks Naik's help to salvage pact with IOC

Faced with the prospect of termination of the marketing agreement with Indian Oil Corporationon, Reliance Petroleum's has petitioned the central government to resolve the crisis.

RPL's vice chairman Mukesh Ambani met Petroleum Minister Ram Naik Monday night and followed this up with meetings with other senior officials of the ministry even as negotiations between the two companies continued following the termination notice served by IOC last month.

"Ambani apprised me of his company's problems with IOC on the marketing agreement. I had earlier heard IOC on the issue and as such am very concerned about differences between the two," Naik said in New Delhi, but declined to give details.

Irked by insistence of Reliance for a guaranteed offtake of 15 million tonnes of petro products from its Jamnagar Refinery, IOC had served the notice for terminating the existing marketing agreement from April 1, 2002 to sell 8.5 million tonne products.

Simultaneous with Ambani's efforts at government level, a three-member team of senior RPL officials engaged board representatives of IOC in protracted negotiations.

Emerging from the hour-long discussions with senior official of the petroleum ministry, Ambani said, "discussions are on. I would not like to say anything beyond this."

Senior petroleum ministry officials said the idea was to avoid litigation that may arise if RPL presses to implement the 1999 agreement with IOC.

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