Anil Ambani again slams Deora’s petroleum ministry

Reliance Natural Resources Ltd chairman Anil Ambani today once again publicly accused the petroleum ministry of being biased towards Reliance Industries Ltd in the legal dispute over the price of natural gas from RIL's fields in the Krishna-Godavari basin.

Addressing shareholders of the company, he said the ministry was ''partisan and biased'' in favour of brother and bitter rival Mukesh Ambani's RIL. He added that the government would not lose a single rupee even if the gas from the fields off India's eastern coast were to be supplied to RNRL at the originally contracted price of $2.34 per unit.

"A gas agreement between the two companies is a commercial matter and the oil ministry's intervention in the case being heard by the Supreme Court favours Reliance Industries," Ambani told shareholders in Mumbai in a speech during which he was interrupted by frequent ovations, watched by wife Tina Ambani.

"The gas price of $2.34 per unit was not decided by two brothers on the dinner table," Anil Ambani said, adding the price was based on the prevailing global oil scenario and legitimately approved by the then-united Reliance Industries board in 2005.

''The facts are deliberately being twisted by the oil ministry to say the corporate agreement between Reliance Industries and Reliance Natural Resources is a private division of sovereign assets,'' Ambani added.

Last month, the Bombay High Court had asked Reliance Industries to supply 28 million units of gas to Reliance Natural Resources for 17 years at $2.34 per unit, after assigning 12 million units to the state-run power utility NTPC.