In a strategic move to boost offshore energy exploration and operational efficiency, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) and Reliance Industries Ltd have signed an agreement to share resources such as supply vessels used in finding and producing oil and gas.
India has called for a ceasefire, release of all hostages, and peaceful resolution of the Israel-Hamas conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. The Centre informed Parliament that India welcomed the agreement on the first phase of the Gaza Peace Plan. The article also covers India's energy sourcing strategy and the release of Indian fishermen by Pakistan.
India on Tuesday opened its largest oil and gas bid round, offering 25 blocks covering 1.91 lakh square kilometers mostly in offshore area, as the government looks to boost domestic production to cut imports and help energy security. Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri launched the 10th bid round under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) at the India Energy Week (IEW) in Mumbai.
In a free-wheeling interview with Jyoti Mukul, Sibal makes a case for his innocence and blames the media campaign by the Anil Ambani group for the current controversy.
Government has approved Cairn Energy's one-billion dollar development plans for four of the 18 oil discoveries made by the British firm in its Rajasthan block.
India's biggest oil and gas bid round attracted four bidders that included state-owned ONGC and OIL and private sector Vedanta Ltd, with most blocks getting just two bids, according to Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). The OALP-IX bid round, where 28 blocks or areas spread over 1.36 lakh square kilometre were offered for finding and producing oil and gas, for the first time saw Reliance Industries Ltd-bp plc combine bidding together with ONGC for one block in Gujarat offshore.
UK-based Cairn Energy will invest $1.33 billion in its Rajasthan oilfields to produce 1,25,000 barrels per day from mid-2007, an official said on Friday.
Pant, a 1991-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Rajasthan cadre, is currently secretary in the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways.
GX Technology case led to police cases against Sibal.
In all, Reliance has a stake in 34 exploration blocks in the country.
India's leading capital goods and engineering firms are in the midst of one of their busiest seasons, with the combined orderbook surging past Rs 8 trillion in value. As on September 30, 2023, 13 of India's top 15 listed capital goods and engineering firms, for which data for the September 2023 quarter was available, had a total orderbook worth Rs 8.45 trillion - a number unseen at least since 2018-19. "This intuitively looks like an all-time high factoring in inflation," said Anupama Arora, a senior independent analyst who tracks the capital goods sector.
Although he denied any wrongdoing, Sibal was forced to revert to Oil India on October 31 as group general manager -- a rank which he held prior to becoming the director general of directorate general of Hydrocarbons.
Reliance Industries, which has seen output from its prolific KG-D6 fields fall by 15 per cent, can raise production to 67-68 million cubic metres of gas a day by next month if it can drill additional wells.
DGH director general V K Sibal objected to Hardy, which holds 10 per cent stake in RIL-operated D3 and D9 blocks, making 'an unwarranted, unethical and premature announcement that is bound to mislead' and influence share price. Sibal on May 29 wrote to Securities and Exchange Board of India chairman C B Bhave asking the market regulator to take up with its counterpart in London the unauthorised statement made by Hardy about its assessment of reserves in the two blocks.
In the wake of opposition from the law ministry and the Department of Public Enterprises, the petroleum ministry
Reliance Industries has already stepped up gas production from 28 mmscmd in June to about 36-37 mmscmd now. The production will soon reach 42 mmscmd once the supply to the Dabhol power plant is increased in the first week of October, said a company official.
The post fell vacant after the government refused Subir Raha an extension at the helm of the company after his first five-year term expired in May.\n\n
Is the DGH right about ONGC's track record?
The Delhi high court has rejected a government challenge to an arbitration panel award that had ruled in favour of Reliance Industries Ltd in a dispute over gas migration from fields operated by state-owned ONGC in the KG basin. The government had slapped a provisional penalty of $1.55 billion on Reliance for "unjust enrichment" from gas migrating from the ONGC-operated KG-D5 block to the private firm's adjoining KG-D6 area. It had sought $175 million in additional profit petroleum from Reliance and its UK partner BP Plc.
The Delhi high court (HC) division Bench on Thursday sought a response from Reliance Industries (RIL) and others regarding the government's appeal against the Mukesh Ambani-owned conglomerate and others for fraudulently and unjustly enriching themselves by draining gas from their deposits, amounting to over $1.5 billion. The Centre had appealed against the single-judge Bench order of the Delhi HC on May 9, which had dismissed its petition. Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani had upheld the international arbitration award of July 24, 2018, in favour of the RIL-led consortium. The consortium includes UK-based BP Plc and Niko Resources of Canada.
The FIR by the ACB was registered a day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the agency has been told to probe their alleged collusion over hike in prices of natural gas from KG basin.
Reliance Industries was to relinquish 25 per cent of the gas-bearing KG-D6 block in 2004 and a similar area in 2006 but the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, which was at that time headed by V K Sibal, concluded that hydrocarbon prospectivity "extends over entire block and hence no block area needed to be relinquished."
In a draft audit report on the KG-DWN-98/3, or KG-D6, block, the Comptroller and Auditor General said the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons allowed Reliance to hike capital expenditure for developing Dhirubhai-1 and 3, the largest of 18 gas finds in the block, by 117 per cent.
Directorate General of Hydrocarbons Director General Rajiv Nayan Choubey did not take calls made for comments.
The Oil Ministry, which had been sitting on the proposal for over a year, wrote to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons earlier this week saying that it has been decided to permit exploration in already producing oil and gas fields, sources privy to the development said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) is expected to complete the special audit of the accounts of KG Basin oil and gas fields of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) by February next year, a top official said.
It is now widely accepted that the faith placed in independent directors, to improve the standards of corporate governance, has often been misplaced. Most of them, and not just in the case of Satyam Computers, tend to go along with the promoters who appoint them.
The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons wants the government to get a share of the $0.135 per million British thermal units marketing margin RIL charges over and above the government approved gas price of $4.205, sources privy to the development said.
Amidst controversy over fall in output from RIL's KG-D6 gas fields, Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) on Wednesday appeared to favour scrapping the present system of contracts and instead asking firms to bid for the share of oil and gas they can offer to the government.
RIL had in February last year submitted a revised field development plan for the MA oilfield, which has been producing crude oil since September 2008.
The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation may face delisting from stock exchanges as a petroleum ministry directive appointing additional government directors on company board has violated its listing agreement.
Upstream regulator DGH has suggested that the $1.235-billion investment of Reliance Industries should be disallowed over the Mukesh Ambani-run firm's failure to adhere to prestated drilling and gas production targets, but the oil ministry is yet to agree on the numbers.
The Madhya Pradesh directorate general of Hydrocarbons has granted Petroleum Exploration Licence to ADAG for exploration of CBM from Sohagpur (north) block in Shahdol district on August 11, official sources said in Bhopal on Thursday.
The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) had recommended to the ministry that RIL be asked to give up 86% of its KG-D6 gas block area
Some documents not yet provided, spokesperson tells DNA Money. Murli Deora's Petromin says report submitted! ADAG once again asks for tabling of report, shows 'proof' govt appointed auditors of RIL expense sheet have conflict of interest.
RIL produced a total of 14.83 mmscmd from Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) gas fields and MA oil and gas field in the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in Bay of Bengal in the week ended May 26, according to a status report of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons.
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