RIL to sell gas to its own units

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) will sell the natural gas it produces from coal seams in Madhya Pradesh to its own units located in Gujarat and Maharashtra, at a price of $4.23 per million metric British thermal units (mmBtu). After the government’s decision in April this year to give coal bed methane producers freedom to discover market price, RIL invited bids from users of the gas. Besides RIL, the other bidders were Deepak Fertilizer & Petrochemicals Corporation Limited, state-owned gas utility GAIL (India) Limited, and GMR’s Rajahmundry and Vemagiri power plants. While RIL bid $4.23 per mmBtu for using the gas at its petrochemical plants at Patalganga and Nagothane in Maharashtra and Jamnagar in Gujarat, Deepak Fertilizer was a close second bidding $4.159. GAIL put in a bid of $4.009 while GMR quoted $2.48 per mmBtu.