RELIANCE INDUSTRIES Board meet tomorrow to consider Audited FY 09 results & Dividend on Oct 07, 2009
RIL threatens to pull out of exploration
- Reliance Industries Ltd has threatened to relinquish some deepwater exploration blocks if government did not approve the long-pending proposal for drilling moratorium to overcome rig shortage faced by operators over the past few years.
"RIL has said 14 deepwater blocks suffered a major setback due to unavailability of rigs, and it could not complete some of the minimum work programme. They may relinquish some of these blocks if drilling moratorium is not granted," a senior oil ministry official told NewsWire18.
Reliance Industries' Executive Director P.M.S. Prasad today made a presentation to the oil ministry on the need for deepwater drilling holiday. The ministry had announced a three-year holiday for deepwater exploration blocks over a year ago to help overcome global shortage of rigs in 2006-2008. Later in January, an empowered committee of secretaries had approved the drilling moratorium, but the proposal has not yet been cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs since then. The drilling moratorium, to come into effect retrospectively from Jan 1, 2008, will give operators three more years to complete their minimum work programme committed under the production sharing contracts signed with the government. The drilling holiday will cover around 35 deepwater blocks--operated by Reliance Industries, state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd and one by Italian exploration major Eni--awarded under the first five auction rounds under the New Exploration Licensing Policy.
India is likely to form a Panel of Ministers next week to decide on further allocation of gas from the Krishna Godavari basin on the country's east cost, a government official said Tuesday. "The panel will only discuss allocation and not the price of gas," said the official, who declined to be named. The government had initially allocated 40 mmscm/d gas from the KG Basin's D6 block to fertilizer and power companies. India's Reliance Industries Ltd, which owns 90% of the block, now plans to increase production further, which has to be allocated by the government.
Government source: RIL may ramp up D6 gas output to 80mcmd by Dec
