An Empowered Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee will meet shortly to decide on allocation of natural gas produced by Reliance Industries to users in power, petrochemical and refinery sectors.
The seven-member EGoM (a Cabinet sub-committee) may meet as early as this week, sources in know said.
RIL now has capacity to produce at least 65 million cubic meters per day (mmscmd) of gas from its eastern offshore KG-D6 fields but is forced to restrict the output to under 35 mmscmd for lack of government-identified buyers.
The EGoM includes Home Minister P Chidambaram, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, Law Minister Veerappa Moily, Fertiliser Minister M K Alagiri, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
When contacted, Oil Secretary R S Pandey said the EGoM has been constituted with the mandate to allocate gas to users and pricing of gas was not included in its terms of reference.
"The previous EGoM had fixed the price of gas (at USD 4.205 per million British thermal unit) for five years and so that continues," he said.
The previous EGoM, which ceased to exit with General Elections in May this year, had allocated the first 40 mmscmd of gas from KG-D6 to fertiliser units, power plants, city gas projects, LPG plants and steel sector.
Demands from power plants, petrochemical units and refineries, including those owned by RIL, would be considered.
