The ‘gas war’ between ONGC and Reliance Industries is getting fiercer.

Now, ONGC has rejected a RIL proposal to hold a joint study to assess whether gas is flowing from the public sector entity’s area into the private explorer’s adjacent gas-producing block on the East Coast.

At a meeting on Friday, the two exploration majors felt that the only option now is to appoint an international consultant to assess the reservoir connectivity. ONGC believes that there is no need to do a joint study as the data available with the public sector firm ‘clearly’ show a connectivity.

According to sources in the know, the two exploration majors will hold another meeting in a month to decide on the international consultant. After ONGC’s request to the Government for access to information on RIL-operated KG-D6 block, which is adjacent to the public sector explorer’s KG-DWN-98/2, to study continuity of the reservoir, technical teams of the two companies have started examining the data.

These are natural geological concurrence and not man-made boundaries, stressed a senior ONGC official. If proved, RIL may end up sharing benefits from its East Coast gas-producing block with ONGC. Once continuity of reservoirs is established, then pro-rata allocation of volumes happens.

Sharing of data will not only help in deciding the reservoirs’ continuity, but also in assessing the amount of gas in the two areas, said an ONGC official.

Seeking information about adjacent blocks for geo-scientific purposes is a common global practice (at times between countries) as it helps in better understanding the area, said another ONGC official.

In fact, domestic operators, such as Reliance Industries, have also done so.

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