The Samajwadi Party members stormed the well dissatisfied over the government's response to their demand for gas allocation to Anil Ambani-promoted Dadri power plant in Uttar Pradesh from the Mukesh Ambani-led RIL's D-6 gas field in the Krishna-Godavari basin.
After the success of Barmer oil fields in Rajasthan, Cairn India - the second largest oil and natural gas explorer in the country - bets heavily on wildcat drilling.
The 28 discoveries include Charada structure and Matar field in Cambay basin (Gujarat) and YSAF in KG basin (off Andhra Pradesh coast), the company said. The discoveries made in FY'09 have been notified to the directorate general of hydrocarbons.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries Limited began gas production from the Krishna-Godavari basin in April, 2009, and its 60 million standard cubic metres per day output led to a 75 per cent jump in natural gas availability in the country to 140 mmscmd.
The company is in talks with BG India and Italian E&P major, ENI.
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.
Heavy rain in coastal Andhra Pradesh in the wake of Cyclone Laila has paralysed industrial activity in the state, including closure of oil rigs in the Krishna-Godavari Basin. Cargo handling at ports also suffered due to the incessant rain.
RIL has been using gas from GAIL during the past three months to test-fire the 1,440-km east-west pipeline, India's longest, from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Bharuch in Gujarat. Only 100 km of the pipeline remains to be test-fired. It will transport gas from the world's largest gas discovery at the Krishna-Godavari basin in the Bay of Bengal to Jamnagar in Gujarat, where it has set up the world's largest petroleum refinery.
With RIL's KG-D6 output playing truant, steps need to be taken to stabilise the country's natural gas production.
An uncontrolled flow of gas started from the Well G-1-9 in Bay of Bengal around August 30.
A deepwater well in a Krishna Godavari basin block operated by state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has been leaking gas for two months and there are now fears of environment damage due to the uncontrolled flow.
Reliance Industries has said the natural gas output at its Krishna Godavari basin KG-D6 fields averaged 54.5 million cubic meters a day in the quarter ended December 31, 2010, down from 60 mmscmd achieved in April.
The government has asked Reliance Industries to supply natural gas from the company's eastern offshore D6 fields to the beleaguered Dabhol power plant, a segment that gets top preference for gas allocation along with fertiliser units.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation plans to invest over $10 billion in bringing to production gas discoveries off the east coast, its director (exploration) D K Pande said on Tuesday.
Reliance Industries will not "scale down" production from Krishna Godavari basin to accommodate RNRL's future needs, nor would it renegotiate the government-approved price of the gas, the Bombay High Court was told on Thursday.
Reliance Industries' flagging KG-D6 gas block holds 80 per cent less reserves than previously estimated, the firm's junior partner Niko Resources of Canada said.
The Krishna-Godavari (K-G) basin may prove to be a much bigger play for Reliance Industries Ltd. This follows the announcement that its D4 block could hold twice the reserves of the in-production D6 block to the north.
The time will come when Indian readers will head that way too, so India Inc will have to rethink traditional ways of controlling information flows.
The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group on Wednesday threatened to sue three top officials of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries for breach of trust and their inability to protect the interest of shareholders of an ADAG company.
This follows a letter by RIL to the ministry, justifying the increase in capex.
This is significantly higher than the government revenues of Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) that ADAG has been claiming in an advertising campaign that it launched on August 17. The exercise marks the first time the directorate general of hydrocarbon, the upstream oil regulator, has worked out such an estimate. The exercise is not carried out in the normal course for oil or gas fields.
Anil Ambani group firm RNRL first filed a case against RIL in Bombay high court in November 2006, alleging violation of a family pact about supply of gas from elder brother Mukesh led RIL's Krishna-Godavari gas fields. Since the financial year 2006-07, RNRL's legal and professional fees have surged nearly five-fold from Rs 3.12 crore (Rs 31.2 million) to Rs 15.27 crore (Rs 152.7 million) in the latest fiscal 2008-09.
Very little notice, however, has been taken of the fact that Reliance Gas Transportation and Infrastructure Ltd, which set up the pipeline network for transport of this gas which has had rival users clamouring for government priority, is no longer owned by RIL, but by the latter's chairman and managing director, Mukesh Ambani. The change took place three years earlier and went largely unnoticed, even though RGTIL is crucial for RIL's burgeoning gas business.
RIL, with interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas exploration, textiles and retail, will continue to see a slow decline in margins.
The agreement, which will be reviewed at the end of five years, will boost profitability of the steel firms who had been buying expensive LNG or naphtha to meet feedstock shortage at their plants, a senior official said. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas had last week asked Reliance to sell natural gas to steel firms like Essar, Ispat and Vikarm Ispat to help the nation's most prolific gas field to produce at optimum level.
A division bench of Justices J N Patel and K K Tated said that the new agreement should be as per the memorandum of understanding between the Ambani brothers Mukesh and Anil. The MoU stipulates that RIL would supply 28 mmscmd of gas to RNRL for 17 years at the rate of $2.43 per million British Thermal Units.
The discovery was made in block KG-DWN-2003/1, lying about 50 km from Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, a company statement said. The block was awarded to Reliance Industries in the fifth round of auction under the New Exploration Licensing Policy.
Petronet LNG, which operates a recently expanded ten-million-tonne gas regassification plant in Dahej on the west coast, is exploring a swap option with the gas from the Krishna-Godavari field (K-G D6) on the east coast owned by Reliance Industries Ltd.
MA fields were producing around 32,000-33,000 barrels of oil per day and 8 million standard cubic meters per day of gas.
RNRL had sought 28 mscmd of gas for 17 years at $2.34 per million British thermal units (mBtu) from Mukesh Ambani's RIL.
Read the full text of the Supreme Court ruling in the Krishna Godavari Basin gas dispute between Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd and Anil Ambani's Reliance Natural Resources Ltd.
In what could seal the fortunes of the gas and power businesses of the two Ambani brothers, the Supreme Court is to deliver a judgment tomorrow on the bitterly fought dispute over gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin's D6 block.
Gas production from the country's biggest gas block is less than a year away, but Reliance Industries (RIL), operator of the block in the Krishna-Godavari basin, and Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL), the biggest buyer of gas from the block, have not made headway on renegotiating the sales agreement.
According to sources, the government has provided a list of 20 companies to Reliance Industries for sale of gas as per the gas utilisation policy. Some of these companies include Nagarjuna Fertilizer & Chemicals, Chambal Fertilizers & Chemicals, Tata Fertilizers and Oswal Chemicals & Fertilizers among others.
The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on gas headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday decided that gas allocation from RIL's D-6 block will be made to power projects subject to availability and without prejudice to court decisions, according to a government release.
Mukesh Ambani-led RIL has sought to lift the sty as it claims it's ready to produce gas next month. Arguing before the court against vacation of the stay, RNRL senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi said, "There is no immediate supply of gas. Let the directorate general of hydrocarbons make a statement when the company is ready to produce the gas."
RIL's predominantly gas rich KG-D6 block, off the east coast, has also helped boost availability of the environment friendly fuel in the country.
The government told the court that price of gas, determined by an empowered group of ministers, is applicable to all the buyers, whether they are government companies or private. The government will file an affidavit to this effect on Tuesday.
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