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Everyone who played a role in the Krishna-Godavari basin gas migration dispute will be made accountable, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum & Natural Gas, said.
Responding to a query at the Economic Editors’ Conference here on Wednesday on whether the Centre will question ONGC, the officials of the government as well as the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, as suggested by the single-member Justice AP Shah Committee, Pradhan that he was bound by the law. “We are taking administrative measures. Once we are ready, we will go public,” he added.
The Shah panel was constituted to look into the allegations made by ONGC against Reliance Industries and its partners in KG-D6 block for benefiting from the gas that migrated from the public sector entity’s adjacent block.
Confirming reservoir continuity, which meant gas could flow from one block to another, Shah panel had recommended that Reliance should compensate the government.
The Ministry has already served a $1.55-billion compensation notice to RIL and its partner. The monetary compensation has been worked out by the DGH based on the recommendations and model suggested by Shah Committee. Confirming the continuity of reservoirs, the Committee had said that independent consultant DeGoyler & MacNaughton’s report must form the basis for the migration of gas up till 2015, and that migration of gas post-2015 by the government.
Responding to the notice, RIL had said it will challenge the same. Asked about the notice, Pradhan said, “the contractors can do what has been prescribed under the production sharing contract.”
LNG imports On the efforts being taken by the government to shift the country’s energy dependence on oil to gas, he said the government is giving a push to setting up of LNG import terminals. It expects the total LNG terminal capacity to increase from the current level of 21.3 mmtpa (million tonne per annum) to 50 mmtpa by 2022.
When asked whether Pradhan and his team would start renegotiating the price of contracted gas from Australia —Exxon’s Gorgon Project — after successfully renegotiating the gas price with Qatar, the Minister said that gas market is different and prices are volatile.
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