Bjp Suspects Foul Play In Leasing Of Panna Oilfield

The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into leasing of six oil fields to private parties and alleged that Panna and Mukta oil fields were leased to the Reliance-Enron joint venture company in Uttar Pradesh in total disregard of financial norms.

In a statement here the party spokesman, Yashwant Sinha, said this one deal is likely to cause a loss of the more than Rs 20,000 crore to the Central exchequer while the oil pool deficit is Rs 15,500 crore.

Sinha said the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) report which has brought to light this scam raises a number of disturbing issues. He demanded to know how oil reserves were scaled down from 54.25 million tonnes in Mukta and Panna oil fields to 31.35 million tonnes, a fall of 22.90 million tonnes.

He said the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) confidential data showed oil reserves of 32.13 million tonnes in Panna and 22.12 million tonnes in Mukta. But while the petroleum ministry invited bids for production sharing, the information docket scaled down the oil reserves to 16.41 million tonnes in Panna and 14.944 tonnes in Mukta.

The final oil reserves, however, showed further decrease of 17.35 million tonnes, he said.

Sinha said even going by data supplied by the ministry, the missing 17.35 tonnes of oils would mean a loss of Rs 8,925 crore to the exchequer at crude oil prices of $20 per barrel.

Sinha said there should be reassessment of oil reserves in all the fields leased to private companies. The inquiry should also take into account the bidding process, indicating the exact date on which different bidders applied and also the circumstances in which permission was granted to senior government and public sector undertaking (PSU) officials to joint private sector companies.