Mukesh Ambani meets top officials on gas pricing

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani met top government officials on Tuesday, including Cabinet Secretary and Principal Secretary to the prime minister, to explain his company's approach to pricing of natural gas to be produced from its KG basin block.

Ambani, who has been camping in New Delhi since Monday, met Expenditure Secretary Sanjiv Misra in the morning to explain how natural gas from Reliance's KG-D6 block can help reduce the fertiliser-subsidy burden by replacing the costly naphtha and fuel oil burnt by the fertiliser makers.

Sources said he also made a point for approving his firms pricing formula, as per which gas would be priced at $4.33 per million British thermal unit, as government revenues at this price would more than compensate for rise in fertiliser subsidy in case gas was used in expansion of such units.

Ambani, whose gas pricing

has been opposed by power and fertiliser ministries as also by his brother Anil, met Principal Secretary of the Prime Minister T K A Nair to explain how his firm arrived at the gas price and how attempts to regulate it despite previously giving explicit freedom, would dampen investments in oil and gas hunt in the country.

Later, the elder of the two Ambani siblings met Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar on the same issue. This meeting was followed by a presentation to the Committee of Secretaries constituted to resolve the vexed issue, the sources said.

Prior to going to Cabinet Secretariat, Mukesh Ambani had an audience with Fertiliser Secretary J Sreedhara Sarma.

Anil Ambani had last week met top officials, including Chandrasekhar to impress on the need for regulating gas price.

Mukesh Ambani met Planning Commission Member (Energy) Kirit Parekh on Monday on the issue.