RIL on June 15 wrote to Oil Ministry proposing to price natural gas it produces from the Krishna Godavari basin block in Bay of Bengal at a rate equivalent to price India pays for importing liquefied natural gas, official sources said.
RIL this week wrote to the ministry offering to give away 4,266 sq km of the Krishna Godavari basin block, sources privy to the development said.
ONGC is set to invest Rs 440 Crore (Rs 4.4 billion) in drilling of 40 oil and gas wells in the Krishna-Godavari basin next fiscal, a senior official of the company said on Wednesday.
Needed, it says, for covering its return and risks; also wants govt to stick to contract on output sharing
Sequel to firm's announcement of cut in K-G gas reserves after long decline in output; agency says it expects decline in cash flows.
Reliance Industries (RIL) has cut estimates for proven gas reserves in its Krishna-Godavari block off the east coast by 6.7 per cent, to 3.67 trillion cubic ft (tcf), the company said in its annual report.
It is expected to take a similar stand at the Mumbai and Delhi high courts, where Welspun Maxsteel, Ispat Industries and Essar Steel have challenged the petroleum ministry's decision to divert KG-D6s supply from steel and petrochemicals to power and fertiliser.
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.
After a long wait for government approval, Reliance Industries (RIL) is to begin work on development of four satellite fields -- D-2, D-6, D-19 and D-22 -- in India's largest gas field, block D6 in the Krishna-Godavari basin, or KG-D6.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) plans to invest USD 2.894 billion (about Rs 15,340 crore) in developing its ultra-deepsea UD-1 gas discovery in the Krishna Godavari basin by 2016-17.
Reliance is seeking help from Shell to rectify glitches in D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari basin.
Petroleum secretary G C Chaturvedi said the arbitration notice grants a time of up to a month to respond and there was no hurry.
Besides Mukherjee and Deora, the EGoM would have power minister Sushilkumar Shinde, fertiliser minister M K Alagiri, law minister Veerappa Moily and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
The company has been in talks with ConocoPhillips and Shell for some time. It now says the MoD's stringent norms on exploration in 'no-go' areas is posing a big challenge in taking the deal forward.
Though all the regulatory and ministerial approvals are yet to come in, two working groups with specific mandates have been set up.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA or Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled oil firm, has offered ONGC its 15 per cent interest in the Krishna Godavari basin block that sits next to Reliance Industries prolific KG-D6 fields without any cost.
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.
Reliance Industries on Wednesday assailed reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General and expert P Gopalakrishnan, which have alleged the company got undue benefits pertaining to Krishna-Godavari basin gas and its pricing.
The government-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Cairn India's partner in the Barmer block in Rajasthan, is closely scrutinising the stake sale in Cairn India by Cairn Energy.
The company is in talks with BG India and Italian E&P major, ENI.
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.
With RIL's KG-D6 output playing truant, steps need to be taken to stabilise the country's natural gas production.
Reliance Industries has informed oil regulator DGH that four smaller gas finds surrounding the D-1 and D-3 fields in the Krishna-Godavari basin can be commercially exploited.
Reliance Industries is ostensibly seeking a 25 per cent increase in the price of natural gas it produces from the eastern offshore Krishna-Godavari Basin after it wrote to the Oil Ministry saying it has customers willing to pay more than the government-approved price.
The danger of a corporate capture of government isn't imaginary, and corporations represent narrow profit-seeking interests of businessmen whose forte is not Constitutional values, says Praful Bidwai.
The output comprised 32.94 mmscmd from the D1 and D3 gas fields and 6.86 mmscmd from the MA oilfield.
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.
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.
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.
Likely to drill three additional exploration wells in the block before the end of 2010.
RIL's gas production from its D6 fields in the Krishna Godavari basin on Sunday touched 50.15 mmscmd. This for the first time surpasses ONGC's 49.6 mmscmd output.
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 said production capacity from KG-D6 has far exceeded the 40 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd), for which buyers have been tied-up, and has asked the government to immediately name customers for an additional 25 mmscmd so as to avoid irreversible damage to the field reservoirs.
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.
India's fiscal deficit is projected to more than double to 6 per cent of GDP this fiscal against the budgetary target of 2.5 per cent. For the next fiscal, the deficit is estimated to be 5.5 per cent of GDP.
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.
Reliance Industries has signed agreements with nine fertiliser and power companies for gas sales from its field in the Krishna-Godavari basin over the past three months. India's largest private sector company has signed memorandums of understanding with Nagarjuna Fertilisers, GVK Industries, Konaseema Power (all in Andhra Pradesh), Kribhco, Chambal Fertilisers, Iffco, Torrent Power (all in Gujarat), Tata Power and Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilisers in Maharashtra.
Lok Sabha MP Harsh Vardhan on July 23 wrote to Petroleum Minister Murli Deora asking why the government had kept quiet for all this while on the Ambani family MoU that provides for dividing Krishna-Godavari basin gas between companies run by brothers Mukesh and Anil.
The latest Ambani-sibling fight has now become a political battle.