RIL Pauses CBM Block Development

Reliance Industries is planning to hold back the development of its coal-bed methane (CBM) blocks in Madhya Pradesh as it wants the government to first decide on the pricing of the gas produced there.

RIL has pegged the price at around $13 per one million British thermal unit for the coal-bed methane and has already submitted a price formula to the oil ministry. In comparison, the government has fixed the price of gas produced from the company's KG-D6 block at $4.2 per mBtu.

RIL's gas output from its eastern offshore KG-D6 gas fields had dropped to a fresh all-time low of 39.80 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd). Reliance holds 60 percent interest in KG-D6, while UK's BP Plc holds 30 per cent and Niko Resources of Canada holds the remaining 10 percent.