The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries on Friday told the Supreme Court that it has no plans to drill more wells in the offshore KG Basin despite the Centre?s recent decision to hike the price of gas.
In its reply to CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta?s petition, RIL through its president and chief operating officer of exploration and production B Ganguly said that despite the proposed revision in price it ?has no intention of drilling more wells in this D1 and D3 fields in block KG-D6, giving a complete lie to the suggestion that the drilling of wells was held back to await a price hike.?
Dasgupta alleged that in furtherance of their intention to ?hoard? gas or deliberately suppress production, the Ambani firm had failed to drill the number of wells which were contemplated in the Addendum to Initial Development Plan.
?Having successfully bid and having acquired the blocks by open bidding, logically, there is no advantage whatsoever for a contractor to avoid drilling wells if there are any prospects of producing gas in commercial or significant quantity. This allegation defies all logic,? RIL said.
The reply is in response to a petition filed by the senior CPI leader seeking a direction to the government to stay the decision to increase the price of natural gas from $4.2 mmBtu to $8.4 mmBtu.
Stating that the allegation raised are ?baseless? and completely devoid of merits, the Ambani firm said the fundamental dispute that has persisted between the government and RIL was on the advisability of drilling more wells.
A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam adjourned the matter till October end.
According to Ganguly, disputes frequently arise between the contractor and the governments and the PSC provides for the method of resolution, including should all else fail, through arbitration. Even the government had many such arbitrations with various contractors, including some cases where awards have been in its favour, it added.
?In the present case, its they answering respondent who has been pushing to get these disputes resolved through arbitration. Thus, the suggestion that the government is colluding with the answering respondent is misconceived,? the counter affidavit stated.