Mumbai: Reliance Industries, which recently converted its existing 33-million tonne refinery in Jamnagar, Gujarat, into an export house, has sought international price for LPG (cooking gas) it sells to public sector oil companies.

Reliance sells almost the entire 2.3-million tonnes of LPG it produces at Jamnagar to public sector refiners at lower than import prices. PSU refiners - Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum — are short on cooking fuel production.

In a letter to petroleuim secretary M S Srinivasan, the company sought import parity for gas it supplies to PSU refiners.

"We would request you to allow us to supply LPG to the PSU system under international competitive bidding procedure as required under the export-import policy," the company wrote.

PSU refiners are not allowed to price LPG, kerosene, petrol and diesel in line with rise in cost and international bidding for gas would imply that these refiners would have to pay Reliance a price close to the cost of importing the fuel.

"We have just converted our existing refinery at Jamnagar into an EOU (Export Oriented Unit)," Reliance wrote, while also seeking grant of deemed export status for such supplies.

An EOU status entitles Jamnagar refinery exemption from 5 per cent import duty on crude oil. RIL''s subsidiary Reliance Petroleum is building another export-oriented 29 million tonne a year refinery adjacent to this unit by end-2008.

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