Centre to vet gas order

Bengaluru: A day after the Election Commission asked the government to delay the doubling of natural gas prices until the completion of elections, oil minister M. Veerappa Moily said top law officers will examine the order before the next course of action is decided.

“We are examining it. And because the matter is also in the Supreme Court of India, we would like our Solicitor General or Attorney General to examine it. I don’t want to comment further on the issue,” he said Bengaluru on Tuesday.

Deferring the new price regime by a few months will not have a material bearing on 85 per cent of the gas produced in the country. Firms such as ONGC will continue to sell gas at $4.2 per million British thermal units (mmBtu).

However, the government will have to decide on the gas produced from Reliance Industries’ eastern offshore KG-D6 fields. The firm’s sales contracts expire at the end of the month and it was looking at renewing supplies to customers including fertiliser plants at the new rates.

The Union oil minister said that delaying the rate hike will have implications on the investment climate and on subsidy as production will be hit in the absence of remunerative prices.