Oil Ministry moves Cabinet note to hike gas price to $6.7 per mmBtu

21 May 2013 Evaluate

In a move to raise the price of natural gas produced by state-owned as well as private firms, the Oil Ministry has moved a Cabinet note on the same to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). The ministry has proposed raising gas price for state-run firms immediately and that for Reliance Industries (RIL) from April 2014 to $6.7, less than $8-8.5 hike previously expected.

The ministry wants Rangarajan Committee recommendation be accepted with a minor modification. Further, as per the oil ministry, the Rangarajan panel report needs to be accepted so that domestically produced natural gas prices are fixed in a fair manner and in a way that incentivizes production.

However, the ministry has proposed notifying the gas price on a quarterly basis, instead of Rangarajan panel's recommendation of calculating gas price every month. Based on average of April-June rates, the gas price would come to $6.775 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu), much less than doubling of rates previously expected. Currently, as the price of natural gas, ONGC/OIL and RIL get $4.2 per mmBtu.

This move of hiking natural gas price by $1 would result Rs 3,155 crore per annum hit on fertilizer plants for producing 23 million tons of urea this fiscal and Rs 4,144 crore a year for 32 million tons of urea production from 2017-18. Further, the increase of every US dollar in gas price would be about Rs 10,040 crore per annum on the power sector for 28,000 MW of electricity generating capacity.

Moreover, the ministry also wants the pricing formula proposed by the committee to apply to all forms of natural gas and the price shall be determined to all consuming sectors uniformly. Also, the new pricing guidelines is likely to apply from 2013 itself on all domestically produced gas barring cases where it is either governed by a definite formula prescribed in the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) or the government had previously fixed a tenure for the same.

However, the proposal would fall short of what RIL and its partner BP plc of UK have been seeking, since they want the domestic gas prices to be freed and benchmarked to the rate at which gas in its liquid form (LNG) is imported into the country. Currently, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is imported at about $14 per mmBtu.

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