Even as the Government has refuted charges over awarding the KG-D6 block to Reliance Industries, the Mumbai-headquartered oil and gas major has said it has no objection to an audit by the national auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.
On November 3, the CAG had objected to the Oil Ministry agreeing to RIL’s conditions to restrict scrutiny of its accounts. CAG made it clear that its audit of RIL-operated Krishna Godavari (KG) oil and gas block off the Andhra Pradesh coast would be a performance audit and not just a financial one.
Responding to CAG, Reliance said in a statement: “RIL has at no time contested the Government’s right to conduct an audit by any agency, including the CAG as provided in Section 1.9 of the Accounting Procedure of the PSC. At all times, RIL has fully co-operated with any auditor appointed by the Government, including in several cases where the Government had already exercised its audit rights earlier, or where such audit was beyond the period stipulated in the PSC (production sharing contract).”
CAG objection
Earlier, RIL had purportedly demanded that the CAG audit of the KG-D6 basin be kept within the Oil Ministry and not made public and tabled in Parliament, as is the procedure.
RIL also had asked for the audit to be carried out in its own premises and reportedly said that it would give no other documents apart from those prescribed in the KG-D6 contract.
Welcomes comments
CAG had objected to the Oil Ministry’s consent and had written to the Ministry asking why it had agreed to RIL’s restrictions.
Stating that, “we are private operators functioning under a PSC”, the RIL statement added, “We have seen press statement made by the CAG as reported by the media. We appreciate the fact that the CAG is in agreement that it does not conduct performance audit of private operators and expect that no such performance related audit issues applicable to the Government will be applied to any such audit.”
The country's largest listed oil and gas major said, “As always, RIL is fully confident of its technical capabilities and welcomes comments on operational matters, if such comments come from experts having the requisite knowledge of the complexities of deep water operations in oil and gas sector.”
amritanair.ghaswalla@thehindu.co.in