ONGC says expert report to decide its dispute with RIL

With Delhi High Court disposing its petition alleging natural gas from its KG block seeping into neighbouring fields of Reliance Industries, state-owned ONGC has said an independent expert report next month will determine if its apprehensions were right or wrong.
"We had an apprehension in March 2014 that some of the (gas) reservoir on our side (of the block) might be extending to the block of Reliance). And some of the gas on our side might have been produced by RIL," ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Dinesh K Sarraf said.
The Delhi High Court, he said, earlier this month disposed off the ONGC petition and asked the parties to wait for the independent expert report to be submitted in October. It allowed ONGC to approach the court again if the government does not act within six months of the submission of the report.

"A consultant (Dallas-based DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M)) was appointed by ONGC and RIL together under the guidance of the DGH. That consultant's work is still on. That report is expected to come at some time in October 2015.
"When the report does come, we would know whether our apprehension is right or not," he said.
In case the report validates ONGC's apprehension, then the court has advised the government that they should take suitable decision within six months of the receipt of the report of the consultant, he said. "So, now based on the consultant report, the government would take a decision."

He said the report of the consultant will be a very important document to decide the course of action between ONGC and RIL.

"We would need to see whether the reservoirs are connected or not. Today, it is unfair to say anything on this matter as an expert is looking into it," he said.
In its petition filed against RIL in the Delhi high court on May 15 last year, ONGC stated: "Pertinently, four wells have been drilled by respondent no 3 (RIL) within distances ranging within 50 m (metres) to about 350 m from the blocks of (the) petitioner (ONGC) and wells have been so drilled and constructed that there is a pre-planned and calculated slant/angular incline towards the gas reserves of (the) petitioner with a clear idea to tap the same."

According to ONGC, its nomination block Godavari PML (G4) and discovery block KG-DWN-98/2 (KG-D5) under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP)-1 are contiguous to the RIL-operated NELP-1 Block KG-DWN-98/3 (KG-D6).
It had alleged that RIL may have drawn natural gas worth up to Rs 30,000 crore from its adjacent discoveries.