 "ONGC to decide on sharing RIL facilities in nine months")
Meanwhile, an official privy to the development said RIL might be asked to share its profit with the government by sharing its facilities with ONGC. "We have not yet finalised using the RIL facility in KG-D6. The company is in the process of appointing a consultant, who would submit a report in the next nine months regarding the feasibility of using RIL facilities," said P K Borthakur, director (offshore), ONGC.
ONGC had made nine gas discoveries, with about 4.8 trillion cubic ft of gas, in its KG-DWN-98/2 block, which is close to RIL's block in the Krishna-Godavari basin.
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Though production from the RIL block was initially estimated at about 80 million standard cubic metres a day (mscmd), it has fallen to about 15 mscmd, owing to technical reasons. "Our plan is to join these gas processing and transportation facilities of RIL, rather than putting up separate facilities," Borthakur said. ONGC expects to start production in these blocks by 2016-17.
Earlier, the Comptroller and Auditor General had questioned ONGC's move of hiring of an RIL rig for Rs 146.71 crore for six months (from February to July 2009) for drilling at three locations. "Actual deployment of the rig indicated its hiring was not necessary for any of the three identified locations," it had said, adding the rig was hired "without calling for competitive bids".