Gas price review panel report Wednesday

The four-member Committee of Secretaries (CoS) set up by the government to review the gas-pricing formula will submit its report by Wednesday, Petroleum Secretary Saurabh Chandra said Monday.

"We hope to get it (committee report) by the 10th (of September)," Chandra told media persons here on sidelines of the PetroFed Awards programme.

The government last month constituted a committee comprising the secretaries of power, fertilizer and expenditure with Rajive Kumar, additional secretary in the petroleum ministry, as its member secretary.

The committee has held discussions with representatives of both gas producers and consumers on the issue.

Sep 30 is the deadline for announcing the new gas price.

The committee's brief is to examine the whole range of issues related to gas pricing, including the Rangarajan Committee formula, which was approved by the previous UPA government but could not be implemented as the Election Commission barred price announcement in the period leading up to general elections.

A new price based on the Rangarajan Committee formula would have most likely doubled the gas price to $8.4 per unit from April 1.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on June 25 decided to defer implementation of the Rangarajan formula till Sep 30 and come up with a new regime by Oct 1.

The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) and its partners British oil giant BP and Niko Resources have served an arbitration notice on the government on revising their gas price, which expired on March 31 this year.

The oil ministry, on the other hand, has imposed a penalty on the company for failing to meet output targets from RIL-led consortium's D-1 and D-3 fields in the KG-D6 eastern offshore block to the extent of 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The new government has decided to defer the implementation till September-end to hold wider consultations with various stakeholders.

There has been opposition to the Rangarajan formula from various quarters on account of its likely impact on electricity tariff, urea cost, CNG rates and piped cooking gas price.

Every dollar increase in gas rates will lead to a Rs.1,370 per tonne rise in urea production costs and a 45 paise per unit increase in electricity tariff. There would be a minimum Rs.2.81 per kg increase in CNG rates, and a Rs.1.89 per standard cubic metre hike in piped cooking gas cost.