EGoM meet nxt week on gas allocation from KG-D6 to power units

NEW DELHI: An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) will meet next week to decide on allocating natural gas from Reliance Industries' eastern offshore KG-D6 fields among power plants.

"The Election Commission has given a go-ahead to hold the EGoM meeting on April 9," a top official said.

The meeting was to be held last week but had to be postponed after a senior opposition leader complained to the EC that the ministers' panel was going to allocate the gas to power plants in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, giving the ruling Congress party in the two states an advantage for making an election promise of giving free power to farmers.

"The EC has been briefed of the necessity of holding the EGoM meeting and it has agreed for the same," he said.

The EGoM meeting has been necessitated with the beginning of natural gas production from the KG-D6 fields. Production is slated to quickly ramp up to 20 million cubic meters per day by next month, creating surplus beyond the about 15 mmcmd allocation made to 15 urea making plants.

As per the gas utilisation policy, fertiliser plants have been given the top priority in allocation of the KG-D6 gas. After meeting the entire fuel deficit at urea making units, up to 3 mmcmd gas is to be given to LPG extraction plants.

Thereafter, up to 18 mmcmd gas would go to power firms and another 5 mmcmd to city gas projects for retailing CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households.