Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) Ltd has denied an Economic Times report that said that quoted company officials as saying ONGC was under pressure from the government to act on concerns that Reliance Industries Ltd could have pumped out gas from a reservoir belonging to ONGC in Krishna-Godavari Basin.
ONGC said it had certain concerns and wanted to apprise the government of them.
“ONGC has written to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas last year requesting for a data-sharing with ONGC to study and evaluate the possibility of a reservoir continuity in the prospective area. Under PSC, DGH has role to play in such situations. However, ONGC was asked to resolve the issue independently with RIL, in the first instance,” ONGC said in a statement.
“Director (Exploration) Mr. N K Verma said in the 4th March Press Conference that some data on overlapping gas pools have been exchanged, but things need to progress from thereon. The recent communication from ONGC to the Ministry was to apprise the status to the administrative Ministry. Mr. Verma also clarified in the Conference that such cases happen in the global hydrocarbon industry and they take time to get resolved either mutually or with the intervention of third party experts,” it said.
ONGC’s clarification comes also in the wake of another ET story on Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi.
“ONGC requests the media fraternity that in the context of the sensitivities of such issues, media should refrain from quoting people erroneously. Such erroneous reporting puts Public Enterprises and Ministries in bad light,” it said.
ONGC is controlled by the government, which owns most of its shares.