Bombay HC to hear RIL plea on July 5

The Bombay high court will hear Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries' appeal on July 5 for review of an interim court order limiting gas sales from its KG-D6 block to brother Anil's group company RNRL and state-run NTPC.

RIL filed an appeal on Monday before a division bench headed by Chief Justice Swantra Kumar seeking a stay on an interim order by a single bench restraining it from selling gas to companies other than Reliance Natural Resources Ltd and National Thermal Power Corporation.

The appeal will be heard on July 5, an RIL spokesperson said. RIL had last month invited bids from power and fertiliser companies with consumption of more than one million standard cubic meters per day and falling on its gas pipeline from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

But Anil Ambani Group, which claimed half of the 80 mmscmd planned peak output from KG-D6

was committed to RNRL as part of the family split, approached the court for a stay. A single bench of the Bombay high court in an interim order stated that the 81.6 mmscmd output is only for RNRL, NTPC or RIL's captive use for next eight years.

Incidentally, July 5 is also the date when the single bench was to give its final view on RNRL's petition. According to the Ambani family spilt agreement, RIL was to supply 28 mmscmd of gas to Reliance Energy at $2.34 per million British thermal unit (mBtu) and also sell the 12 mmscmd of gas earmarked for NTPC if its agreement with the state-run power major collapsed.

RIL had bid $2.34 per mBtu price for NTPC's tender for sourcing LNG/natural gas three years ago when crude oil prices were at around $35 per barrel.

With oil prices jumping to $70 per barrel, it sought price discovery and arrived at a price of $4.33 per mBtu.