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

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.