RIL shines on serving arbitration notice to GoI over delayed gas price revision

Reliance Industries is currently trading at Rs. 1024.05, up by 26.70 points or 2.68% from its previous closing of Rs. 997.35 on the BSE. The scrip opened at Rs. 997.45 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 1048.00 and Rs. 995.00 respectively. So far 5,42,000 shares were traded on the counter. The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 10 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 1048.00 on 12-May-2014 and a 52 week low of Rs. 765.00 on 28-Aug-2013. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 1048.00 and Rs. 925.00 respectively. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 3,31,242.00 crore. The promoters holding in the company stood at 45.30% while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 29.86% and 21.41% respectively. Reliance Industries (RIL), BP and NIKO have issued a Notice of Arbitration on May 9, 2014 to the Government of India (GoI) seeking the implementation of the ‘Domestic Natural Gas Pricing Guideline 2014’ notified on January 10, 2014. The continuing delay on part of the GoI in notifying the price in accordance with the approved formula for the gas to be sold has left the parties with no other option but to pursue this course of action. Without this clarity, the parties are unable to sanction planned investments of close to $4 billion this year. In addition, this will also delay the ability of the parties to appraise and develop other significant discoveries made last year. Overall, the parties were planning to invest $8-10 billion in the next few years to significantly increase production from the KGD6 block. This domestic production is essential for meeting India’s energy needs and will also help conserve foreign exchange which is required for imports of natural gas into India at the present time. All of this requires clarity on pricing.