Friday, 6 June 2014

Reality behind gas price in india: Is Kejariwal right?

Yes, Kejariwal is right. There is big scam in relation to KG basin gas. Here are simplified facts about gas price. 

Gas price fraud by by Reliance in KG basin gas 
  1. Change in the conditions of auction: In auction condition for beading was prior experience of Gas Production but reliance did not had it. So that condition was removed by govt (influence by reliance??) 
  2. Initial contract stated that reliance will invest 2.4 billion dollar and will give gas to the govt at $2.34/MBTU. Relience will get all these money till it will earn 2.5 times(that is $6.0 billion) and after that it will get 15% of the profit and govt will get 85% of profit. Reliance revised its production estimates from 40 mmscmd (million metric standard cubic metres per day) to 80 mmscmd while increasing its investment from $2.4 billion to $8.8 billion.So according to newer investment cost, govt will not get anything till reliance earns $22 billion!!! Fact was that amount of gas was overstated(acco to the Principal Advisor, Power and Energy to the government of India, Surya P Sethi along with the then cabinet secretary). So reliance does not need to give 85% share to govt till it earns $24 billion.
  3. In initial contract, there was the condition that if gas production is not started with in given time, that land will be disown by Reliance, dead line ended 2 years back. UPA govt extended its deadline in their last working week!! Why?? 
  4. Reliance in their document in court during their case with Anil Ambani, they have stated production cost as $1 per MBTU. 
  5. They asked for increased rate as per international price. And they counted the price by getting average(volume rated) form US and other countries with high gas price. Countries with cheaper gas was excluded in calculation international gas price!!! Due to price rise by  reliance other company also asked for higher price and govt raised price for all.
  6. Production of gas at present is much less than estimated by reliance earlier. For this much production, their stated investment is too high and can not be recovered in near future. And government is unlikely to get any money from it in near future as it will take very long time to recover $24 billion.
  7. To decide gas price, govt made Rangrajan committee that used the formula of gas that is not used for this gas(generally used for LNG), also they used wrong method to calculate price of gas. in their calculation price of gas, raise would be steep initially. It was not the right formula
  8. If you want technical detail of this issue, you can watch this very informative video: Surya P. Sethi: Reliance KG Basin Scam (Part 1) 
What are the arguments of congress and reliance?
  1. Reliance has only 15% gas contracts and more than three fourth of gas production is done by government owned PSUs(ONGC), so price raise is more helpful to govt rather than reliance. But it does not justify any fraud by reliance.
  2. Cost of production raised due to raise in rate of crude oil as well as inflation in india. But, there was no provision for that in initial contract. 
  3. Increase in rate of gas means early recovery of money by reliance. so, government will start getting money from sell of gas earlier. Money that reliance will get will not change much as its 2.5 times of their capital investment, after that reliance will get only 15%.
  4. Currently, india gets gas from other country at much higher rate (14-16 USD/MBTU), so at $8/MBTU, govt will get cheaper gas. But why should govt pay more for gas from  their own land? Esp when production cost is less than $1.5/MBTU. Gas from other country is costly also because of costly transport.

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