Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Friday said the Supreme Court upholding the government's right to approve price and utilisation of gas was a "fair decision" and it had no bearing on the gas supply dispute between NTPC and Reliance Industries.
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.
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.
India's latest bid round for 21 oil and gas blocks attracted just three bidders, two of whom were state-owned explorers Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL), according to upstream regulator DGH. As many as 21 blocks or areas were offered for exploration and production of oil and gas in the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) Bid Round-VI, for which bidding closed on October 6. Besides ONGC and OIL, Sun Petrochemicals was the only other company to have bid, according to 'Summary of Bids Received Against Offered Blocks' posted by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH).
Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd, will set up a new age world-class university in India.
Future group firms are convening meetings of their respective shareholders and creditors in November to seek approval to their proposed merger into Future Enterprises as part of the 24,713-crore deal with Reliance Retail. Several listed transferor firms including Future Retail, Future Consumer, Future Enterprises, Future Lifestyle Fashions, Future Markets Networks and Future Supply Chain Solutions - have informed their shareholders and creditors about the meetings which will take place on November 10 and 11. The meetings of the equity shareholders, secured creditors and unsecured creditors will be held through video conferencing /other audio-visual means, said Future group companies, adding that remote e-voting facility will be offered to all participants.
The petroleum ministry has rapped Reliance Industries for failing to meet its obligations of opening and operating 10 per cent of its petrol and diesel retail outlets in remote and low-service areas.
The well, CB10A-N1 encountered hydrocarbon bearing zone between 1,388 and 1,403 meters below the earth in the block CB-ONN-2003/1 near Ahmedabad, the company said in a press statement in Mumbai.
The deal is expected to be around Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) in size and will take a month to conclude, a person involved with the talks between the two groups said. The plot is a part of the 18.5-acre land RIL had bought in 2006 from Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority for Rs 1,104 crore (Rs 11.04 billion) in an auction.
The Anil Ambani group, fighting a legal battle for securing 28 mmscmd gas for Reliance Natural Resources from RIL at a price of $2.34 per mmBtu under a family settlement, had last week questioned the marketing margin and had informed RIL that it would not pay the same.
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.
RIL plans to give up about 56 per cent of "low prospectivity area" in its eastern offshore KG-D6 block and retain only the portion where oil and gas discoveries have been made.
Among Sensex components, shares of Reliance Industries, India's largest company by market value, stole the show by surging 1.61 per cent to their highest in over three months.
Cutting across party lines, MPs in Rajya Sabha expressed deep concern over the dispute and said the private contractor should not be allowed to enter into a memorandum of understanding for distribution of gas from a national asset.
Two Indian companies - Reliance Industries and Tata Consultancy Services - figure in the financial disclosure report submitted by Lawrence Summers, director of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council.
Vendors say Infotel Broadband close to signing tower leasing deals with Anil Ambani company
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.
The first cargo of 25,000 tonnes of Euro-IV grade diesel from RIL's refinery at Jamnagar was shipped by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd on Friday, said an informed source. This is also the first coastal supply of Euro-IV diesel for the Indian market.
India Gas Solutions Pvt Ltd -- the equal joint venture between the Mukesh Ambani-led firm and Europe's second largest oil firm - is among the three companies shortlisted by Gujarat government for giving out 25 per cent stake in the Mundra terminal.
Gas production at KG-D6 field dropped by a steep 53 per cent.
The university will be set up under Reliance Foundation, the new philanthropic initiative of the Reliance Group, and will be modelled on the lines of American universities. RIL will invest Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) in the foundation with plans to scale up its contribution to Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion).
Days after a CAG draft report said his firm got out of turn favours from the oil ministry and its technical arm DGH, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani on Friday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The Registrar of Companies has given a clean chit to Reliance Industries, while disposing of complaints that its merger with Reliance Petroleum would benefit only promoter Mukesh Ambani.
BP Plc, Europe's second biggest oil company, and Reliance Industries will invest $5 billion in developing untapped gas reserves in the KG-D6 block as the partners attempt to reverse the fall in gas production.
RIL's Dubai-based subsidiary Reliance Exploration & Production DMCC "signed the completion documents for divestment of its 25 per cent working interest in the Yemen's Block-9 to Medco Yemen Malik Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PT Medco Energi Internasional Tbk of Indonesia," the company said in a statement.
Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries on Wednesday said there are no proposals for a bonus issue or a stock split of its shares.
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.
GAIL on Wednesday said it is in talks with Reliance for laying a Rs 6,725 crore pipeline from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Uran to pipe natural gas from RIL's gas fields in Bay of Bengal to consumption centres in West and North.
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.
In a surprise move, oil regulator DGH has asked Reliance Industries to include the marketing margin the company charges on sale of natural gas from its field to the approved gas price for calculating the government's share from the project.
Cairn India is 25th on the list with 22.2 per cent CGR.
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.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has sought reconstitution of an empowered group of ministers to decide on allocation of gas from RIL-operated KG-D6 fields to new customers. Deora, who met T K A Nair, principal secretary to the prime minister on Sunday, has formally written to the Cabinet secretary for reconstitution of the eGoM on the lines of the previous ministerial group headed by the then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Reliance Industries has announced the setting up a 2 million tonne per annum petrochemical complex at its special economic zone at Jamnagar with an investment of Rs 13,500 crore (Rs 13.5 billion).
A Committee of Secretaries will meet on July 6 to discuss pricing of natural gas to be produced from Reliance Industries' block off the east coast and whether the Centre should take its share in cash or kind.
Reliance had shut its 1,432 filling stations in March 2008 after sales dropped to almost nil as it could not match the subsidised price.
Transparency International, a non-profit organisation fighting against corruption and malpractices, gave Reliance Industries and ONGC ninth and 26th positions, respectively, in its latest report Transparency in Corporate Reporting.
Tech Mahindra was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 4 per cent, followed by HDFC, Infosys, Bajaj Finserv, Asian Paints and Bajaj Finance. Nifty rose 229.15 points to 18,102.75.
the Sensex lost 23 points to close at 28,185 levels and the Nifty shed 7 points to end at 8,515 mark.