The Oil Ministry has now put in abeyance its order that allowed Reliance Industries to divert a significant portion of gas from the KG-D6 basin to Dabhol power plant in Maharashtra while depriving gas to other power plants.
“The directions contained in the August 1 order may be kept in abeyance,” the ministry is believed to have written to RIL on Tuesday, a oil ministry source said.
The decision to divert gas to just one power plant faced a lot of flak from different quarters especially Andhra Pradesh, where shortage of gas had led to a shortfall of as much as 400 MW.
Sources said KG-D6 currently produces about 28.76 million metric cubic metres per day as against projected 80 mmcmd output for this time of the year. As per the government order the output is first used to meet all the requirement of urea-making fertiliser plants that drew 15.3 mmcmd of gas.
Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) manufacturing plants received 2.6 mmcmd of gas while the remaining 10.5 mmcmd was prorated among 25 power plants. But after August 1 order 7.6 mmcmd of gas out of the quota for power plants was to go to the Dabhol plant and the rest - 3 mmcmd was to be prorated among other consumers.