New Delhi

Facing an acute fuel shortage, private power producers today asked the government to divert scarce natural gas from non- priority sector, like petrochemical plants, to electricity generation.

While almost all of the 35 million cubic meters per day natural gas output from Reliance Industries'eastern offshore KG- D6 field is consumed by priority sectors of fertilizer and power, over 7 mmcmd of gas produced by stateowned ONGC is being supplied to non- priority sectors.

Top executives of private power companies including Anil Ambani and Cyrus Mistry met Prime Ministers Principal Secretary Pulok Chatterji on Wednesday and sought immediate gas allocation on priority basis for the sector, sources said.

Private power producers led by Reliance Powers Anil Ambani asked Charterji to snap gas supplied by ONGC to non- priority sector.

They wanted a pool to be created of the gas thus freed and the about 25 mmcmd of KG- D6 gas supplied to power sector.

This pool, they wanted, should be distributed prorata

prorata among the operating and about to be commissioned power plants.

The meeting comes days ahead of a crucial meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers ( EGoM) headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on gas allocation on February 24.

While the EGoM has the mandate for allocation of gas produced from block awarded under New Exploration Licensing Policy ( NELP) like KG- D6, power firms want the gas produced by ONGC from nominated fields, called APM gas, too also be included in its mandate for allocation to priority sector.

The demand comes amid projections by RIL that output from KG- D6 will dip to 27 mmcmd next fiscal and to about 22 mmcmd in the year thereafter.

Private power producers asked allocation of gas for all projects recommended by the Power Ministry - 25 mmcmd for a capacity of 6,500 MW apart from assurance of supply for remaining projects that would be completed in 2012- 13.

Other issues such as high coal prices, augmentation of captive mines production, development of hydro power projects and finalisation of standard bidding documents, were also discussed at the meeting.