Govt may hike natural gas price by 30

The Oil Ministry has circulated a Cabinet note for raising price of gas under administered pricing mechanism APM from Rs 3,200 per thousand cubic meters USD 1.79 per mmBtu to Rs 4,142 per thousand cubic meters USD 2.32 per mmBtu.

Price of APM,or the gas produced from fields given to ONGC and OIL on nomination basis,is proposed to be raised in stages to Rs 7,500 per thousand cubic meters or USD 4.2 per million British thermal unit by 2013.

Sundareshan said the government was weighing policy options to end differential pricing of natural gas that ranges from under USD 2 per mmBtu APM gas to USD 5.73 per mmBtu for gas produced by BG Group-operated Panna/Mukta and Tapti fields.

Options for uniform pricing of gas from various sources to consumers by way of pooling of prices was being studied,he said.

Under pooling of prices,the producers will get the price as per the production sharing contract between them and the government. But the consumer prices will be uniform irrespective of the source of gas.