The Petroleum Ministry has allocated additional natural gas from Reliance Industries' eastern offshore gas fields to three power plants to meet electricity deficit in northern states reeling under drought.
RIL on Monday submitted a commerciality report for the Dhirubhai-39 discovery in block KG-DWN-2003/1, about 50 km off Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, to the oil ministry and the directorate general of hydrocarbons. A company official said the well KG-V-D3-A1 flowed 38.1 million cubic feet per day of gas and the find was later named Dhirubhai-39.
The government has formed a four-member panel of secretaries to suggest a new gas pricing mechanism.
Reliance Industries has served a notice for suspension of gas supplies to four fertiliser plants in Uttar Pradesh from Thursday unless they enhance their financial guarantees to cover for state sales tax.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs may this week decide to price all domestically produced natural gas as per a formula suggested by a panel headed by Prime Minister's economic advisor C Rangarajan.
RIL has sent a draft GSPA to Essar Oil and the contract may be inked within the next few days.
The government has cut the windfall profit tax on crude oil produced in the country while the levy on exports of diesel and ATF has been hiked, an official notification said. The tax, levied in the form of special additional excise duty or SAED, on domestically produced crude oil was reduced to Rs 6,700 per tonne from Rs 7,100 a tonne. SAED on the export of diesel was increased to Rs 6 per litre from Rs 5.50 a litre and on jet fuel or ATF to Rs 4 per litre from Rs 2, the notification said.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected division of gas under the Ambani family MoU and said that it was government's right to decide the price and utilisation of the fuel, which is a national asset.
RNRL is seeking 28 million cubic meter of gas a day or more than one-third of peak output from RIL's eastern offshore KG-D6 fields at a price set in a 2005 family agreement.
With pricing of natural gas from the KG-D6 block stuck, Mukesh Ambani made the second trip to New Delhi this month to meet top officials.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was to give away the awards but he could not attend because he was travelling.
RIL in a letter to the ministry said if such an "untenable" policy was allowed it would encourage KG-D6 allottees to sell the cheap gas at higher rates during times like plant shutdowns when they don't need the fuel.
The government is likely to clear the price quoted by Reliance Industries Ltd for its gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin without seeking to control the price.
RIL also reported measures taken to check falling output in the KG-D6 field.
Previously, chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Haryana had written to the Centre seeking 7.5-8 million standard cubic metres per day each of RIL's KG-D6 field gas for power plants in their respective states immediately.
Brokerages expect Nifty50 companies to have cumulatively witnessed strong double-digit growth in their earnings in the first quarter of FY24 (Q1FY24). This growth in the combined earnings is expected to have been driven by banks, automakers, and oil & gas companies. Other sectors may report muted profit growth.
Re-instatement of 5% custom duty on crude imports will help.
Shares of Reliance Industries plunged on Friday after a court ruling that the Mukesh Ambani-led company can not sell its KG basin gas to any company except NTPC and Anil Ambani group's Reliance Natural Resources.
RIL Director P M S Prasad addresses the many charges laid at the company's door.
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.
RIL now has the capacity to produce 60 mmscmd but is constrained to produce less as the government is yet to identify customers beyond the initial 40 mmscmd that had been allocated primarily to fertiliser and power producers in accordance with the Gas Utilisation Policy.
Mittal said his steel plants were getting gas at no less than $6 per million British thermal unit (mBtu), much lower than the $4.33 per mBtu price proposed by RIL.
State-run NTPC Ltd is likely to sign by month-end an agreement to buy natural gas allocated by the Centre from Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries Ltd at government-approved rate of $4.20 per mmBtu, power secretary H S Brahma said on Wednesday.
EC on Monday asked the government to defer notifying doubling of price of the fuel produced by companies such as Reliance Industries till general elections are completed.
IAC activist Arvind Kejrival yesterday claimed that Jaipal Reddy was shunted out of petroleum ministry due to his opposition to gas price revision.
State-run gas utility GAIL India Ltd buys 0.9 million standard cubic meters per day of output from Ravva Satellite fields at $4.30 per mmBtu. The new price sought by the Ravva consortium is 60 per cent more than the maximum price of $4.20 per mmBtu approved for RIL's KG-D6 fields for five years to March 2014.
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.
Australia's Oilex on Monday said it has made huge natural gas discovery in Gujarat that may hold over 1.5 Trillion cubic feet of recoverable reserves. Industry estimates put the total resource base or inplace reserves in the Cambay basin discoveries near the town of Khambat, 160-km south of Ahmedabad, at between 20-30 Trillion cubic feet, almost equivalent to inplace reserves of Reliance Industries' eastern offshore KG-D6 fields.
In a letter to the state principal secretary (energy and petrochemicals) S Jagdeesan on September 4, RIL executive director PMS Prasad said NTPC is currently buying natural gas on spot basis, which could potentially increase the cost of power by about Rs 1,500 crore.
RIL had drawn 58.67 bcm of gas from four wells.
The previous United Progressive Alliance government had last year approved pricing of all forms of domestically produced gas at according to a formula suggested by a panel headed by C Rangarajan.
Sources familiar with the developments said the government will file an application in the Bombay High Court by the end of December or early January. RIL on its part has already appealed against the order.
The ratio is based on the valuation made by consultancy firm KPMG.
"There is no change in situation. It may take a couple of days for the water to recede and restart of the facility," an ONGC official said.\n\n
The government plans to impose an additional penalty of $578 million on Reliance Industries for producing less-than-targeted natural gas from its eastern offshore KG-D6 block.
A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam sought response from the Centre and RIL on a PIL filed by Communist Party of India Member of Parliament Gurudas Dasgupta who alleged that no due diligence was done by the government while increasing the price of natural gas.
State gas utility GAIL India on Tuesday won rights to retail CNG and piped cooking gas in two of the six cities auctioned and is set to win for another two cities, while its joint venture with Hindustan Petroleum beat Reliance Industries to bag another city.
Reliance Energy on Wednesday signed the State Support Agreement (SSA) with Uttar Pradesh for sale of electricity from the world's largest gas-based power plant of 3740 MW at an investment of over Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion).
Moily said several gas fields of both RIL and state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp were economically unviable to produce at current rate of $4.2 per million British thermal unit.
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