Government moves HC to lift ban on Reliance gas sale

25 September 2008

Mumbai: The centre has requested the Bombay High Court to lift a stay on the sale of gas from Reliance Industries' eastern offshore fields in the Krishna-Godavari basin, a top official of the petroleum ministry said.

The high court had asked Mukesh Ambani-controlled RIL to refrain from creating any ''third-party'' interest on gas from the field, following a petition filed by Anil Ambani's Reliance Natural Resources Ltd in connection with a contractual dispute.

''Efforts are on to get the court injunction vacated to help early gas production from the K-G basin. The government has requested the Bombay High Court for lifting injunction on gas sales,'' petroleum secretary R S Pandey said on the sidelines of a PHDCCI meeting.

Petroleum ministry officials said the the government had become a party to the case after both attorney general and the law ministry gave their opinion that the government was indeed an ''affected party'' by the court stay on gas sales.

Anil Ambani, who has staked claim on 28 million cubic metres per day of gas from the field as part of a family agreement signed by the two sides during the demerger of the Reliance empire, objected to the oil ministry's intervention, terming it as a move to help Reliance Industries.

The agreement allegedly envisaged gas sale to the Ambani firm at $2.34 per mBtu (million British thermal unit) – the price RIL had quoted to state-owned power generation utility NTPC for 12 million cubic metres a day in 2004.