Reliance may divert Tapti gas to NTPC

Reliance Industries will divert its share of natural gas from the Panna, Mukta and Tapti oil and gas fields in the Mumbai offshore to the Kawas and Gandhar power plants of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to make up for the delay in production from its Krishna Godavri (KG) gas fields in the Bay of Bengal.

Reliance holds 30% interest in the Panna, Mukta and Tapti fields, which produce 11 million standard cubic metres of natural gas and 31,000 barrels of oil per day.

"We have part-marketing rights of the output, and we can divert it to NTPC if the need arises to make up for any delay in supply from the KG field," a senior company official said today.

He added that government delays in approving the 1,400-km Kakinada- Ahmedabad pipeline for evacuating the produce had pushed the production deadline to March 2008 from the earlier plan of 2006-07.

"NTPC has told us that their Kawas and Gandhar expansion would come up by 2007-end, and we hope to be ready for supply by then," he said.