Shares of Reliance Industries today rose nearly 3 per cent after the Cabinet decided to allow the energy major to double the prices of natural gas from April.

This was subject to the firm furnishing a bank guarantee to cover its liability if gas hoarding charges against it are proved.

RIL’s stock was trading higher by 2.28 per cent at Rs 874 on the BSE. On the NSE, the scrip was up 2.27 per cent to Rs 873.40

The bank guarantee, which will be equivalent to the incremental revenue that RIL will get from the new gas price, will be encashed if it is proved that the company hoarded gas or deliberately suppressed production at the main Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) fields in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block since 2010-11.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has decided that the “contractor (RIL) will be allowed to sell natural gas from D1&D3 at a revised price from April 1, 2014. The sale will be permitted on the basis of a bank guarantee to be furnished by RIL in favour of the Government for the incremental gas rate,” Oil Minister M. Veerappa Moily had said yesterday.

The CCEA headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided there will be no change in the Rangarajan formula of pricing domestically produced gas — both conventional and non-conventional fuels such as coal-bed methane and shale gas — at an average of international gas hub rates and the cost of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imported into India.

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