NEW DELHI, Dec 1 (Reuters) - India has renewed efforts for an increase of about 30 percent in the price of gas sold within its administered price mechanism. [ID:DEL473525]
The prices were last revised in July 2005, when the producer price rose to 3,200 rupees ($69.6) per thousand cubic metres (mscm) or $1.8/million British thermal units (mBtu) for sales to power and fertiliser industries, and 3,840 rupees/mscm for other consumers. Customers in northeast India get a 40 percent discount.
Here are some facts and figures about India's natural gas sector:
-- Of 140 million standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd) of gas supplies, about 55 mmscmd is sold under the administered price mechanism (APM).
-- The main producers of APM gas are Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd (ONGC.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) and Oil India Limited (OILI.BO: Quote, Profile, Research)
-- About 94 percent of ONGC's gas output is sold at state-set prices and Oil India sells about 90 percent of its gas at the APM price.
-- Gas from the Panna/Mukta Tapti fields operated by a joint venture of the BG Group (BG.L: Quote, Profile, Research), ONGC and Reliance (RELI.BO: Quote, Profile, Research); Ravva fields operated by Cairn Energy (CNE.L: Quote, Profile, Research) (CAIL.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) and ONGC and Cairn India's Laxmi and Gauri offshore fields is sold at market prices.
-- The government has fixed a base price of $4.20/mBtu for gas produced by Reliance Industries from a large gas field in the Krishna-Godavari Basin in the Bay of Bengal. It was the country's biggest discovery in three decades.
-- A government panel in May 2007 recommended a producer price of 3,600 rupees/mscm for ONGC and 4,040 rupees/mscm for Oil India.
-- The panel also recommended an escalation of 55 rupees/mscm for every change of 10 points in the Wholesale Price Index over the March 2005 level of 189.40 points.
-- Based on the current wholesale price index, the producer price (excluding 10 percent royalty) for ONGC and Oil India works out to 3,875 rupees/mscm and 4,315 rupees/mscm, respectively.
-- Based on the recent oil ministry proposal, the price of administered gas for ONGC, excluding royalty, would be 4,142 rupees/mscm or $2.32/mBtu. ($1=46 rupees) (Compiled by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) ((nidhi.verma@thomsonreuters.com +91 11 4178 1018 Reuters Messaging: nidhi.verma.reuters.com@reuters.net))