‘Govt. may hike natural gas price by 30 per cent’

February 01, 2010 06:35 pm | Updated 09:41 pm IST - New Delhi

The government may in ‘weeks’ decide on raising the price of natural gas produced by state-owned ONGC and Oil India by 30 per cent, Petroleum Secretary S. Sundareshan said on Monday.

“(It is) matter of weeks (that a decision on raising prices would be taken),” he told reporters here.

The Oil Ministry has circulated a Cabinet note for raising price of gas under Administered Pricing Mechanism (APM) from Rs 3,200 per thousand cubic meters (USD 1.79 per mmBtu) to Rs 4,142 per thousand cubic meters (USD 2.32 per mmBtu).

Price of the gas produced from fields given to ONGC and OIL on nomination basis is proposed to be raised in stages to Rs 7,500 per thousand cubic meters or USD 4.2 per million British thermal unit by 2013.

Mr. Sundareshan said the government was weighing policy options to end differential pricing of natural gas that ranges from under USD 2 per mmBtu (APM gas) to USD 5.73 per mmBtu (for gas produced by BG Group-operated Panna/Mukta and Tapti fields).

Options for uniform pricing of gas from various sources to consumers by way of pooling of prices was being studied, he said.

Under pooling of prices, the producers will get the price as per the production sharing contract between them and the government. But the consumer prices will be uniform irrespective of the source of gas.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.