Is the DGH right about ONGC's track record?
After awarding oil and gas blocks under NELP-VI, the government is now turning its focus to the seventh round of the New Exploration and Licensing Policy (NELP-VII).
They also voiced concerns over a double penalty being sought to be imposed on them for KG-D6 fields output not matching targets.
These 7 blocks are adding exploration acreage of 18,510 square kilometres spread over three sedimentary basins of India and have a resource potential of approximately 33 billion barrels of oil and oil equivalent gas.
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The Management Committee headed by Director General of Hydrocarbons R N Choubey refused to take a view on appointment of renowned reservoir consultants Ryder Scott, DeGolyer and MacNaughton, Gaffney, Cline & Associates or Netherland, Sewell & Associates to ascertain if RIL's claims of fall in reserves are actually true or the firm was hoarding gas by producing less, official sources said.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries (RIL) might be denied a higher gas price from its D1 and D3 fields until the arbitration process with the government is over and a third-party expert report on the fall in output at the KG-D6 block is out.
CAG had in its previous reports slammed Oil Ministry and its technical arm DGH for not exercising enough control and vigil over KG-D6 block.
ONGC has suffered a loss of over Rs 30,000 crore due to alleged siphoning off of natural gas by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) from the PSU's well in Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin and appointment of an experts body on the issue "will not help", the state-run oil firm said.
Pradhan said a National Data Repository which will store information on all sedimentary basins of the country is being pursued on top priority.
Post-cessation, activities related to the safe shutdown of the field are underway.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation had in 2007 farmed out 15 per cent stake in the KG-DWN-98/2 block, which sits next to Reliance Industries' KG-D6 block, to Brazil's state-controlled oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA or Petrobras.
Cracking the whip on whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka, the Haryana government has decided to charge sheet him for alleged administrative misconduct in cancelling the mutation of the land deal between Robert Vadra and real estate major DLF in Gurgaon.
Experts say finding a solution within the high court-mandated timeline of six months may be tough.
Oil Min rejects RIL arbitration notice.
RIL, which had made four consecutive gas discoveries with close to 500 billion cubic feet of in-place reserves in block, proposed immediate relinquishment, its minority partner Hardy Oil and Gas plc of UK said on Wednesday.
Reliance concealed and did not reveal the data to ONGC.
RIL has slapped an arbitration notice challenging oil ministry's decision to take away 814 square kilometer of its eastern offshore KG-D6 area that contained five gas discoveries.
RIL-BP currently produce gas from Dhirubhai-1 and 3 field and oil and gas from MA field, three of the over one-and-half dozen discoveries made in KG-D6 block
A Texas company will submit a report by June on whether a company controlled by RIL 'stole' natural gas from the wells where ONGC is contracted to operate in the KG basin, as alleged by ONGC.
The 'failure' to drill the committed 50 wells on the KG-D6 fields led to natural gas output dramatically falling over the past three years.
The government will now examine the report and decide on how and to what extend should ONGC be compensated for its gas being produced by RIL.
RIL and its partners BP plc of UK and Canada's Niko Resources plan to produce about 13 million standard cubic metres per day of gas for 13 years from D-34 discovery, known as R-Cluster, in the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block by 2017-18.
With this, the total penalty on RIL for missing the target in four fiscal years beginning April 1, 2010 now stands at a cumulative $2.376 billion, the Minister informed the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
The government has slapped an additional penalty of $792 million on Reliance Industries for producing less than targeted natural gas from its eastern offshore KG-D6 block.
The 30-share Sensex ended down 297 points at 27,438 and the 50-share Nifty closed 93 points lower at 8,305.
The list includes CAG's request dated July 2, 2012 for information on award of contract for laying of a 1,395-km pipeline by Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Ltd for shipping KG-D6 gas from east coast to the west.
Government has put on auction the gas discovery area it snatched from Reliance Industries in KG-D6 block and the field that Cairn India is seeking to regain around its Rajasthan block.
As CAG found Reliance Industries was being favoured in gas exploration deal to the government's detriment, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the then top auditor Vinod Rai that audit should not hurt the private sector and RIL was one of the biggest and most respected.
Former Australian judge Michael McHugh, who was appointed by Supreme Court to adjudicate on Reliance Industries' KG-D6 dispute, had slammed the government interpretation of his statements before quitting the tribunal.
ONGC takes Reliance to court, alleging years of stealing from its offshore block and a sleeping govt, right after it was agreed there would be a probe by experts.
RIL produced a total of 13.58 mmscmd of gas from Dhirubhai-1 and 3 gas fields and MA oil and gas field in the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in Bay of Bengal in the first week of February, which rose to 13.63 mmscmd in the following week.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday registered eight more preliminary enquiries in connection with issues related to intercepted phone calls of lobbyist Niira Radia against former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, Reliance Industries Limited and others in separate cases.
The main losers on the Sensex were Tata Steel, Hero Moto, BHEL, ONGC & Maruti Suzuki.
Reliance Industries has accused CAG of exceeding its brief in the audit of spending on eastern offshore KG-D6 block saying hindsight is being used to question operational decisions taken 8 years back.
Reliance Industries will have to provide a bank guarantee of $135 million every quarter to get a higher price for natural gas from April 1 next year.
ONGC must tackle several issues first only then it can turnaround its fortunes.
The committee said whatever benefit RIL received in terms of the migrated gas is liable to be returned to the government.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had last month told the Parliament that his Ministry has disallowed RIL from recovering $2.376 billion invested to develop offshore Krishna Godavari gas fields as output has fallen drastically and was way below the promised volumes in past four years.
Reliance Industries on Friday hit out at Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) for suing it over KG gas dispute, saying some elements in the state-owned firm may be "misleading" the chairman D K Sarraf to hide their failure in developing the discoveries made over 13 years.
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