The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday said it would move the Election Commission (EC) against a revised Cabinet note proposed to be moved by the Oil Minister, Veerappa Moily, in the middle of elections in the country.

Addressing a press conference here, senior lawyer and AAP leader, Prashant Bhushan, alleged that the revised Cabinet note seeks to not only favour private oil major, Essar, but also violates the model code of conduct already in force.

The said ‘favours’ pertain to the already discovered oilfield near Mumbai (Ratna and R-series) that was put out for bidding 21 years ago and has not been concluded till date. According to the revised Cabinet note, made public by AAP, this field is now sought to be handed over to Essar.

Alleging that Moily’s move would fetch gains of $9 billion to Essar, AAP said “This field has estimated cumulative oil production of 12.33 million tonnes and 1285 mmscm of natural gas over a project life of 22 years. At current prices of $100 per barrel of oil and $4.2 per mmbtu of natural gas, the value is $9 billion and $189 million, respectively, totalling $9.2 billion.”

It alleged that Moily was using the “ambiguous opinion of the Attorney General to overrule the opinion of the Cabinet Secretary, Finance Ministry, Petroleum Secretary, Planning Commission and the earlier opinion of the Law”, which had warned of a huge revenue loss for the Government and had recommended that the block either be re-auctioned or given back to ONGC, as the production sharing contract had not yet been signed..

AAP, which earlier trained guns on Moily on the gas pricing issue, questioned whether the field could be given to Essar even though the bid conditions were 18 years old and the price of oil had increased six-fold.

According to media reports last year, the Essar-Premier consortium, which includes the firm's British partner Premier Oil, had warned of legal action, including under India-UK Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement, if the award, bagged through an open international bidding process, was cancelled.

Meanwhile, an Essar spokesperson said in a statement that the company was awarded the Ratna R-series block in an open and transparent manner through a bidding process. “We are not aware of any internal notes or documents of MoPNG in the matter. However, it is in the national interest to make any block operational especially when there has been significant delay already and the country is importing over 70 per cent of its crude requirement at a high cost in foreign exchange,” the statement added.​

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