Reliance Industries Ltd.

Reliance Industries has asked for a 50% rise in the price of natural gas produced from new discoveries at its KG-D6 block, but the government has ruled out an immediate price revision and asked the company to reassess the economics of the block. The disagreement will further delay investments needed to increase output from the block, which has fallen by a third to about 42 million standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd). The satellite fields and another discovery in the block have the potential to produce 24 mmscmd. At the meeting of the block's management committee, Reliance had proposed a price of $6 per unit to make its satellite discoveries viable. But the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) had fixed a price of $4.2 per unit up to 2014, making it difficult to accept a new rate, particularly when bureaucrats are scared that any action to help a company would be viewed with suspicion.