RIL-ONGC dispute: CPI leader Tapan Sen asks OilMin to back PSU

With ONGC finding itself isolated on the issue of its legal suit against Reliance Industries, CPI leader and MP Tapan Sen has asked Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to ensure that interest of the government exchequer and commercial rights of the PSU are fought at all costs.
ONGC had on May 15 moved the Delhi High Court alleging that RIL may have drawn natural gas worth thousands of crores of rupees from its fields that sit next to Mukesh Ambani-run firm's KG-D6 block Krishna Godavari basin.
"It is shocking to note that motivated interpretation of the whole episode is floated and wild allegations against ONGC are being hurled by vested interest with the intention to derail the whole rightful approach of ONGC," Sen wrote to Pradhan today.

Sen, who is also a member of the Parliamentary Standing committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas as well as Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU), said ONGC with the approval of its Board of Directors had approached the Delhi High Court.
"By analyzing relevant data and other materials, ONGC found that some of RIL's wells drilled adjacent to the block boundary have been drawing gas from its (ONGC) field and hence chose to sue RIL in order to protect its commercial interest and natural resources of the country," he wrote.
Denying ONGC charges, RIL had in a May 23 statement claimed that there was "likelihood of some elements in ONGC misleading the new Chairman and Managing Director, DK Sarraf, in order to hide their own failure to develop discoveries made over the last 13 years".

ONGC believes that RIL's D6-A5, D6-A9 and D6-A13 wells in KG-D6 area drilled close to the block boundary may be draining gas from its G-4 field of Godavari block while the well D6-B8 may be draining gas from DWN-D-1 field of its KG-DWN-98/2 block.
RIL had stated that ONGC was yet to commence development of any of the discoveries in its two blocks.