A meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Natural Gas has been put off by a day to July 28 due to the visit of Myanmar’s ruling military junta leader.
“The EGoM meeting was scheduled for July 27 evening, but due to engagements of the visiting dignitary, it has now been rescheduled to July 28,” an official said.
The panel, whose meeting was convened at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office, is likely to deliberate on the availability of gas in the country over the next few years, but may not allocate any fuel to new customers.
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The EGoM, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is likely to discuss prioritising the usage of the gas that is likely to become available in the next five years.
It may ask for the requirement of power and fertiliser plants coming up in future to be put up for discussion and possible allocation from the projected additional gas output at a later date.
“Currently, no power plant connected with a pipeline network is starved of gas. Those commissioning this year have already been allocated gas,” he said.
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The Oil Ministry will make a presentation on source-wise and year-wise availability of gas and will also present a synopsis of the recent Supreme Court verdict on the Ambani gas dispute.
It may talk about Reliance Industries’ eastern offshore KG-D6 field touching a peak output of 80 million standard cubic metres a day in 2011-12, as well as the beginning of production from Gujarat State Petroleum Corp’s KG basin fields in 2012.