RIL open to CAG audit on gas field expenditure

NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries has written to the government that it has no objection to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India auditing its gas field costs and said it is operating the field in compliance with rules.

As a follow up of the meeting called by the Oil Ministry yesterday to tell private operators that it can appoint CAG to audit their oil and gas field costs, RIL Senior Vice President (Commercial) B Ganguly wrote, saying that the company had "no objection to any special audit of KG-D6 PSC (Production Sharing Contract) by CAG as desired by the government."

Ganguly, who represented RIL at the meeting yesterday, had told the Ministry verbally that the company was "ready and open" to any scrutiny.

In the letter, he stated that the PSC gives government the right to audit records of operators within two years from the end of a financial year and in case of KG-D6 the same has been exercised until 2006-07.

Despite the accounts being audited by the government appointed auditor, RIL said: "To reiterate the fact that we are transparent in our operations... we convey our no-objection to any special audit of KG-D6.

"However, we hope that this is one time exception which does not create a precedent for the future," Ganguly wrote.

RIL further stated that all its operations were being conducted "in accordance with good petroleum industry practices and in compliance with all the provisions of the PSC."