Terrorism a threat to hydrocarbon sector: Reliance Industries

October 12th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The response for the latest round of auction for handing over hydrocarbon assets in India for exploration and development has been "poor", with even Reliance Industries refraining from making a single bid. The deadline for receiving bids for the eighth round of auction under what is called the new exploration licensing policy, was noon Monday.

October 9th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group has agreed to pay under protest a marketing margin to Reliance Industries for the gas supplied from the Krishna-Godavari basin, over and above the price formulae of the government. In a letter to the oil ministry, the group has queried if the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries was entitled to charge the margin, as neither the company has undertaken such an exercise nor has the government's price formulae enabled such a provision.

October 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - The public spat and litigation between the Ambani brothers could adversely affect the sentiments of foreign companies interested in investing in India's oil and gas exploration, the sectoral regulator said Thursday. India is currently inviting bids for the latest round of auction of its hydrocarbon assets, where it is offering 70 blocks.

October 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - The public spat and litigation between the Ambani brothers could adversely affect the sentiments of foreign companies interested in investing in India's oil and gas exploration, the sectoral regulator said once again Thursday. "Any fight between corporates has a negative impact.

September 14th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is in talks with the Sri Lankan government for exploring oil in the island country. The government is "in talks with Reliance for petroleum exploration", Sri Lanka's Minister of Investment Promotion Navin Dissanayake told reporters here Monday.

July 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - In a bid to give a fillip to the current round of auction of hydrocarbon assets, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Monday extended the tax exemption on profits in the natural gas sector. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has been seeking tax holiday to the natural gas sector since last year, when the 2008 auction deadline had been postponed many times due to confusion over this issue.

April 23rd, 2009 MUMBAI - India's largest private sector company, the Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries, Thursday reported a 1 percent drop in net profits for the quarter ended March 31 at Rs.3,874 crore (Rs.38.74 billion or $774.8 million). The turnover of the oil refining to retail major also dipped nearly 24 percent at Rs.29,073 crore for the fourth quarter in what had been a difficult year for oil refining companies in the wake of high crude prices and lower margins.

March 2nd, 2009 MUMBAI - In one of the largest merger deals in India, Reliance Petroleum will merge with its parent and the country's biggest company, Reliance Industries, in what the promoters say will create better synergies for them in the hydrocarbons space. The board of the two companies met here Monday to unanimously approve the merger in the ratio of one share of Reliance Industries for every 16 shares of Reliance Petroleum.

February 28th, 2009 MUMBAI - The $34.5-billion Reliance Industries, India's largest private sector company, Friday announced that it will consider a proposal next week to merge another group company into itself to bring in operational efficiency. The Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries and its oil refining and export-oriented subsidiary Reliance Petroleum, have both informed the stock exchanges of their boards' agenda to consider the merger.

January 29th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Bombay High Court Friday lifted its interim ban on the sale of natural gas by Reliance Industries from the Krishna-Godavari basin till final orders March 15, and said the company can retail it at $4.20 per unit. The Mukesh Ambani-led group can sell the gas from the fields off the Andhra Pradesh coast based on the criteria set by an empowered group of ministers, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, and accepted by the government, the court ruled.

January 21st, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGOM) on gas utilisation from Reliance Industries' (RIL's) KG-D6 hydrocarbon block in the Krishna Godavari basin has decided that Reliance's own industries will be eligible for supply only after the needs of fertilizer units and power plants are met, the government said Thursday. In a statement, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas said the total production of gas will reach a 'plateau' of around 80 million metric standard cubic metre per day (mmscmd) by 2012, before it starts dwindling from 2017.

January 15th, 2009 MUMBAI - The Bombay High Court is expected to decide next week whether Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries can assume sale of natural gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin, off the Andhra Pradesh coast. The court had imposed a stay on the sale of natural gas from the fields after two cases were filed against Reliance Industries over the sale price and qualtity of fuel - one by the Anil Ambani Group and the other by state-run power utility National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).

January 14th, 2009 MUMBAI - Anil Ambani-led Reliance Natural Resources Thursday pleaded before the Bombay High Court that the government had no right to fix the sale price of gas due to it from the hydrocarbon fields allotted to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries. 'Under production sharing contracts, government's role is limited to approving the gas value so as to determine its share of profits,' a senior company official said, quoting a counter-affidavit filed with the court on the dispute over the natural gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin.

January 13th, 2009 MUMBAI - Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Wednesday denied any pact with Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) for the sale of natural gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin off the Andhra Pradesh coast. Representing Reliance Industries, senior counsel Harish Salve told the Bombay High Court that a memorandum of understanding was entered into with Reliance Energy, another company in the Anil Ambani group, for the Dadri power project in Uttar Pradesh.

January 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Central Industrial Security Force (Amendment) Ordinance, 2009, which came into effect Saturday, will allow deployment of paramilitary troopers at private and joint sector businesses and also for UN peacekeeping missions abroad, a government statement said. 'It (the ordinance) would pave the way for deployment of CISF for the security of private and joint sector enterprises depending upon the threat perception.