Amid concerns over high selling prices of coal-bed methane (CBM), the government has informed that gas extracted from coal seams will be priced at equivalent to conventional gas, as the new Rangarajan formula will also apply to CBM. Presently, the actual CBM gas price that is being realised by industry players such as GEECL and EOL is much higher than the Government approved price.
Oil Ministry has notified that gas price advised through the new pricing guidelines 2014 based on the Rangarajan formula to treat as a floor price in case of CBM contracts. Therefore, the prices of CBM, shale gas and conventional gas will be equal and contractors cannot charge a higher price than this from their customers. The Ministry added that coal-bed methane contractors like GEECL and EOL will have to sell CBM gas at a uniform rate of $8.3 per mmBtu derived from the new Pricing Guidelines 2014.
The government had approved the formula under which all domestically produced gas will be priced at an average of the price prevailing at international gas trading hubs and the actual cost of importing liquid gas (LNG). Under the new approved pricing formula, the gas prices will get doubled at $8.30 per million British thermal unit from the current price at $ 4.20 per mbtu. New price will be uniformly applicable to all public and private sector producers such as Reliance Industries and ONGC. The increase in gas prices will directly benefit these local producers. Further, the move to raise gas prices is expected to benefit the government by around $2.2 billion incremental revenue by way of higher taxes. However, the implementation of new approved pricing formula has been deferred till completion of general elections.
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