New Delhi, Sep 25 (Inditop.com) State-owned power utility NTPC has asked the power ministry to ascertain whether the marketing margin levied by Reliance Industries (RIL) on gas from the Krishna Godavari basin was valid.
In a Sep 23 letter to the power ministry, NTPC executive director T.K. Chatterjee said: “It is requested that the matter may kindly be taken up (with the petroleum ministry) so as to obtain specific confirmation on applicability of marketing margin over and above the gas price as per the price formula approved by EGOM (empowered group of ministers).”
The letter said the NTPC board had decided “to go ahead for executing the GSPA (Gas Supply and Purchase Agreement) with RIL”, but that it would “take up the matter of marketing margin separately” through the power ministry, under which the company falls.
Chatterjee referred to an earlier letter to RIL in which NTPC had indicated its willingness to pay the marketing margin at the rate of $0.135 per mmbtu “subject to the confirmation of its applicability from the government”.
He also referred to a communication from the petroleum ministry intimating the power department that “the government has not, till date, fixed or approved the quantum of marketing margin for sale of natural gas by any contractor”.
Finding “no explicit confirmation” from the petroleum ministry on the issue, Chatterjee said, NTPC had sought legal counsel, and that it was advised to seek recourse through its parent ministry with the “appropriate authority in the government”.
NTPC Thursday signed another GSPA with RIL to buy a part of the gas allocated to it from K-G D6 fields at a rate of $4.2 per mmbtu for its Anta power plant in Rajasthan.
As per the agreement, NTPC will buy 0.61 million metric standard cubic metres of gas a day for the plant. The volumes are less than one-fourth of the 2.67 mmscmd gas the government had allocated to NTPC.
