New Delhi : Days ahead of the first payment by customers at the new gas price, the Oil Ministry is grappling with the issue of how to bill the gas produced from Reliance Industries’ main fields in the KG-D6 block, reports PTI.
As per the 15-day billing cycle, gas producers are to raise the first invoice at the revised price of USD 5.61 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu) this weekend. However, there is still no clarity on how to invoice the fuel from RIL’s D1&D3 fields, which is to be sold at the old rate of USD 4.2 per mmBtu.
While announcing an across-the-board 33 per cent hike in natural gas prices, the government had on October 18 stated that customers of D1&D3 gas will pay the revised rates but RIL will get only USD 4.2, with the difference being deposited in a gas pool account maintained by state-owned GAIL.
Sources said the Oil Ministry is still grappling with the easier option of allowing RIL to raise bill at new rate of USD 5.61 and then depositing USD 1.41 in the gas pool account. Or alternatively, asking customers to pay the old rate of USD 4.205 per mmBtu to RIL and the incremental USD 1.41 per mmBtu rate into the gas pool account, an option fraught with risks like payment defaults as well as being at odds with rights of the contractor under Production Sharing Contract. Under the first option, at stake is just USD 4 million of additional revenue that USD 1.41 will fetch for about 7 million standard cubic meters per day of output from D1&D3 fields every fortnight.
Sources said this is too less an amount for any firm to swindle and not deposit in the gas pool account, thereby risking government action, including cancellation of contract.
On the other hand, the second option may lead to creating more complexities in a dispute which is primarily between the contractor (RIL) and the government, they said.
