DGH wants Reliance Industries to share marketing margin for approving spending

Oil regulator DGH has refused to approve Reliance Industries' spending on the flagging KG-D6 block unless the Mukesh Ambani-run firm shares with the government a part of the marketing margin it charges on sale of natural gas.

The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) wants the government to get a share of the USD 0.135 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) marketing margin RIL charges over and above the government approved gas price of USD 4.205, sources privy to the development said.

It wants the marketing margin to be added to the gas sale price and thereby the profit-sharing between the contractor and the government to happen at USD 4.34 per mmBtu. At present, RIL and the government split profits at the gas sales price of USD 4.205 per mmBtu after deducting the project cost.

Sources said DGH in a note to the Oil Ministry made several changes in the accounts RIL submitted for 2010-11. It included USD 88.998 million, which the company got as marketing margin, in the revenue earned from sale of oil and gas from the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block.

While RIL proposed a profit petroleum of USD 35.507 million to the government after deducting capital and operating cost from the revenue earned from sale of oil and gas during the year, DGH calculated the same at USD 36.406 million.

RIL has since the first time DGH opened the issue of marketing margin last year, strongly defended the levy saying marketing margin was to cover for risks and costs associated with marketing of gas and was levied beyond the gas delivery flange and as such, is not regulated by the Production Sharing Contract (PSC).

The PSC governs fixation of price of gas at the 'delivery point', the point at which an upstream operator transfers custody of gas to a marketing and transportation agency. That point for KG-D6 gas is Kakinada, in Andhra Pradesh, and the government had in 2007 approved a gas price of $ 4.205 per mmBtu at the delivery point.

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