E-Paper
NTPC misleading govt, claims RIL
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has charged the state-owned NTPC with misleading the government in stating that it was not aware of the requirement of government approval for the gas price under the production sharing contract (PSC) for RIL’s KG-D6 block.
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has charged the state-owned NTPC with misleading the government in stating that it was not aware of the requirement of government approval for the gas price under the production sharing contract (PSC) for RIL’s KG-D6 block.
NTPC’s chairman and managing director, R S Sharma had recently written to the power ministry that RIL had not communicated that the price of gas of $2.34 (Rs 115) per unit quoted by it to NTPC in the international competitive bidding (ICB) was subject to government approval under the PSC.
“Nothing can be further from the truth,” RIL’s president and CEO (petroleum business) P.M.S. Prasad said in his letter to the petroleum secretary, R.S. Pandey, on Thursday.
“The fact is that NTPC was not only aware of the requirement of gas price approval under PSC but had in fact insisted upon and agreed to its inclusion as a condition precedent to the gas supply agreement,” he said.
“NTPC’s letter to the government at this stage is clearly an after-thought intended to mislead the government,” it said. “In fact, as part of the NTPC tender process... NTPC itself specified that the, ‘Seller shall have obtained Approval under Laws’.”
The NTPC spokesperson refused to offer to comment, saying "the matter was sub-judice."
