RIL to continue gas supply on existing terms as interim measure

After a marathon day-long meeting in New Delhi on Monday, Reliance Industries Ltd and companies from the fertiliser industry agreed to continue their gas contracts on existing terms until a new agreement is negotiated.The existing Gas Sales Purchase Agreements that ended on Monday night provided for supply of gas by RIL at $4.20 per million British thermal unit and with the absence of a government notification on the new gas price, both sides temporarily agreed for the continuance of the old rate, officials involved in the discussion said. In another development, the Supreme Court of India, on Monday, appointed former Australian Supreme Court judge James Spigelman as the third presiding arbitrator to resolve the dispute between RIL and the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas over the falling output from KG-D6 gas fields. Earlier, the Central Government had appointed former Supreme Court judge V. N. Khare as arbitrator while RIL had appointed former Supreme Court judge S. P. Bharucha as its arbitrator. While the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas had accused RIL of hoarding gas to sell at higher prices following price revision effective April 1, 2014, RIL has been insisting that the fall in output was due to geological problems.