Government may relax contract timelines on RIL's new oil finds

Government may relax contract timelines on RIL's new oil finds

With development of three gas finds in Reliance Industries' KG-D6 block held up due to a technical dispute, the petroleum ministry is seeking Cabinet nod to relax timelines to allow the firm retain and produce from the discoveries worth $1.45 billion.

RIL had notified the Dhirubhai-29, 30 and 31 in 2007 and submitted a formal application for declaring them commercial in 2010, well within the timelines set in the production sharing contract. But the ministry's technical arm Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) refused to recognise them in absence of prescribed confirmatory test.

The issue was intensely debated between RIL, DGH and the ministry since then. The Mukesh Ambani-run firm finally agreed to do the drill stem test (DST) but the DGH declared that the contractual time period for development of the finds is over.