RIL, BP drop 3-yr-old gas price challenge

Centre had conditionally agreed to BP Inc’s demand

New Delhi, June 23: Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries and its British partner BP plc have withdrawn a legal challenge they had mounted three years back against the government over delay in gas price revision.

The withdrawal of the arbitration will now entitle the two firms to marketing and pricing freedom on the natural gas they produce from newer fields in the deepsea at an investment of `40,000 crore by 2022.

Sources said the two firms moved to withdraw the international arbitration before Mr Ambani and BP CEO Bob Dudley met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 15 morning. They completed the process within days. That day, Mr Ambani and Mr Dudley, in a rare press appearance, announced restarting the investment cycle in their Krishna Godavari basin KG-D6 block after eight years hiatus by taking up of three sets of deepsea discoveries for development at a cost of `40,000 crore.

Mr Dudley had in his previous meeting with Mr Modi in January 2015 made a fervent pitch for extending the gas price premium to existing undeveloped gas fields in difficult areas like deepsea instead of restricting them to future finds as had been announced in an October 18, 2014 decision.

Centre agreed to his suggestion but made it conditional upon firms withdrawing any legal proceedings or arbitration challenging government's gas pricing policy.

While RIL was non-committal, BP made its intentions clear within days of the March 10 decision.

BP India spokesperson had on March 12 stated that the “decision by the government on marketing including pricing freedom for new production from deep, ultradeep water and highpressure, high-temperature areas provides clarity to end the pending gas pricing dispute.”

On Friday, the spokesperson confirmed that the legal challenge has indeed been withdrawn. “Yes, the 'gas price' arbitration has already been withdrawn,” the spokesperson said.

An email sent to RIL remained unanswered.

RIL and BP had in May 2014 filed an international arbitration after the Election Commission forced deferment of implementation of a new pricing formula the previous UPA government had approved for pricing of RIL-BP's eastern offshore KG-D6 and other gas.

The Election Commission wanted the new government to take a view and when the NDA government came to power it rejected the formula. The formula would have lead to doubling of the gas price to $8.4 per million British thermal unit in 2014 but the rate would have been at almost the same level of $5.56 per mmBtu decided under the March 2016 formula for difficult fields. — PTI