RIL had freedom to market gas, says RNRL

New Delhi
Dec. 1: Accusing the government of changing the rules relating to the supply of the gas by Reliance Industries only after the demerger of the company, Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) said the Central government was unfair to its promoter, Mr Anil Ambani.
Quoting from a series of documents submitted to Parliament by the government and oil ministry and the minutes of a group of ministers on energy, the RNRL counsel, Mr Ram Jethmalani, stated that all the documents revealed that RIL had the full market freedom to supply gas from the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin.
But the ministry after the demerger suddenly sought to give an impression that the pricing of the gas from the KG oil field was subject to government control, which Mr Jethmalani, term-ed as “unfair” to RNRL, while continuing his arguments before a three-judge Bench, headed by the Chief Justice of India.
This virtually scuttled the move of RNRL to raise funds from the market for its 7,000 MW Dadri power project in UP and another 4,000 MW planned in Maharashtra. Even though these projects had not been commissioned till date, RNRL was entitled to receive gas from RIL as per the fixed price under the demerger MoU.
The senior advocate submitted that the oil ministry in its answers to numerous questions in Parliament and outside to media queries, had given the “unqualified reply” that Reliance Indus-tries had complete freedom to market the natural resources from KG basin.
Apparently the freedom of supplying the gas as per the MoU applied to RNRL, and neither the government nor RIL could back out from their commitments, he said.
Both the companies are locked in a tough legal battle over the sharing of gas from the KG basin as RNRL claimed that it should get uninterrupted supply of gas to its proposed power projects for 17 years at the rate of $2.34 per measured unit.
RNRL has to bear the tra-nsport expenses on this fix-ed price, the court was told.