Gas to Anil firm if available: FM

New Delhi, May 14 (PTI) The Government of India on Friday
said allocation of natural gas to companies like Anil Ambani
Group's Reliance Natural Resources Limited (RNRL) will depend
on availability of the fuel after supplying to already
designated users.
Allocation to new plants like Anil Ambani group's
proposed power plant in Dadri, in India's northern state Uttar
Pradesh, would be made "when the gas will be available. I
cannot be distributing a non-existing and on available
resource," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here.
The comment comes within days of the Supreme Court
upholding the government's sovereign right on gas, while
giving its verdict on the four-year-old gas pricing and supply
dispute between the group firms of Mukesh and Anil Ambani.
"We had already taken certain decision. Those decisions
ought to the implemented... for certain sectors, we had
indicated that gas will be available to you as and when you
are in a position to take the gas (or) absorb the gas,"
Mukherjee said.
The Supreme Court had on May 7 rejected RNRL's plea for
28 mmscmd gas at USD 2.34 per million British thermal unit -
44 per cent lower than Government approved rates, for 17 years
from RIL under a 2005 private family agreement between
brothers Mukesh and Anil.
The court had asked them to renegotiate the deal in
conformity with the government policy.
Mukherjee, who headed ministerial panels that approved
the USD 4.2 per mmBtu price for gas from Reliance Industries'
KG-D6 fields, fixed its users and decided on the government's
intervention in the Ambani gas dispute, welcomed last week's
Supreme Court verdict establishing the government's right over
the national resource.
"I am happy with the judgement because it clearly
established the authority of the government" as the owner of
the natural resource to fix price and users of the fuel as per
national priorities, he told CNBC TV18.
An Empowered Group of Ministers, he headed, had allocated
64 million cubic meters per day of gas from KG-D6 fields to
fertilizer, power, petrochemical, refineries and steel plants
for five years to March 2014. Another 30 mmscmd was given on
temporary or fallback basis while the peak approved output
from KG-D6 fields is 80 mmscmd.
The EGoM, he said, had decided that Anil Ambani Group's
proposed power plant near Delhi would be allocated gas as and
when it comes up.
Mukherjee said the EGoM had fixed price for five years
and decided on users for all the gas for this period. After
this period and upon increase in availability, a new gas price
may emerge. PTI ANZ
RBT


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