ONGC has alleged that at least three wells drilled by RIL on the boundary of KG-D6 block in Bay of Bengal are within few hundred metres of its gas fields
The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued notices to the union government, Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH) and Reliance Industries Ltd on a plea filed by state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC). The two companies have been involved in a face-off for the past several months over whether RIL took out gas from ONGC's gas blocks in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin.
ONGC moved the High Court accusing RIL of exploiting substantial gas from its natural gas block. It also accused the DGH for failing to take appropriate action and precautionary measures in the matter that is going on since past few months. According to reports, ONGC has sought a compensation of Rs8,000 crore from the Mukesh Ambani-led company.
Last month, both ONGC and RIL had decided to appoint a reputed global consultant to study data on both sides, says a report from Economic Times.
According to the report, ONGC had said at least three wells drilled by RIL on the boundary of KG-D6 block in Bay of Bengal are within "few hundred meters" of its gas fields. It fears the fields are connected and RIL may be drawing out its gas. RIL disputes the ONGC theory and the two firms have shared data to collaborate on their claims, the report adds.
Earlier, the state-run oil explorer had even written to DGH about the possibility of RIL drawing gas from blocks allotted to it. ONGC has around 11 discoveries in the KG basin gas fields and plans to develop G4 and KG-DWN blocks by 2017. As per ONGC estimates there is over 4 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in the KG-DWN-98/2 block with an estimated output of 6-9 million standard cubic metres per day of gas.
According to the newspaper reports, ONGC feared that gas discoveries in its nomination block G4 (Godavari PML) and Block KG-DWN-98/2 (KG-D5) extends into RIL's KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block.
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