G S Singhvi named arbitrator for $1.5-bn ONGC-RIL dispute

The government has named former Supreme Court Judge G S Singhvi on the three-member arbitration panel that will decide on the validity of its $1.55 billion compensation claim from Reliance Industries for “unfairly enriching” and producing natural gas belonging to ONGC.

RIL and its its partners BP Plc of the UK and Canada’s Niko Resources, who had on November 11 slapped an arbitration notice against the government disputing the $1.55 billion demand, have named former UK high court judge Bernard Eder to the panel.

“They (RIL-BP-Niko) named the arbitrator last month and the government has nominated Singhvi on the panel now,” a senior official said.

The two arbitrators will now decide on a presiding judge of the three-member arbitration panel.

The oil ministry had on November 3 issued a notice to RIL, Niko and UK’s BP Plc seeking $1.47 billion for producing in the seven years ended March 31, 2016 about 338.332 million British thermal unit of gas that had seeped or migrated from the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) blocks into their adjoining KG-D6 in the Bay of Bengal.

After deducting $71.71 million royalty paid on the gas produced and adding an interest at the rate of Libor plus 2 per cent, totalling $149.86 million, a total demand of $1.55 billion was made on RIL, BP and Niko.

RIL is the operator of the KG-D6 block with 60 per cent interest while BP holds 30 per cent. The remaining 10 per cent is with Niko Resources.

The official said the arbitration will get underway once all the three-members are in place.

The government’s compensation claim flowed from the report of the Justice (retd) A P Shah Committee.

The Shah panel, in its August 28 report, concluded that there has been “unjust enrichment” to the contractor of the block KG-DWN-98/3 (KG-D6) due to production of the migrated gas from ONGC’s blocks KG-DWN-98/2 and Godavari PML.

The government, the official said, accepted the recommendations of the committee and consequently, decided to claim restitution from RIL-BP-Niko for “the unjust benefit received and unfairly retained”.

So, a notice was sent, he said, adding that the government is also pressing RIL to pay $174.9 million of additional profit petroleum after certain costs were disallowed because of KG-D6 output being lower than targets.

The cost recovery issue is also being arbitrated separately.

Originally, ONGC had sued RIL for producing gas that had migrated from its blocks KG-DWN-98/2 (KG-D5) and Godavari PML in the KG basin to adjoining KG-D6 block of RIL.

Under direction of the Delhi High Court, the government had appointed a one-man committee under retired Justice A P Shah to go into the issue. Shah however said the compensation should go to government as it is the owner of all unproduced natural resources.

In another development, Ola Money, digital payment solution from Ola, will be accepted at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) fuel pumps and LPG distributors across the country, the company announced on Monday. Acceptance of Ola Money in a prominent public utility such as BPCL is another step by Ola towards supporting the government s vision of a cashless ‘Digital India’, Ola Money Senior Vice President Pallav Singh said in a statement here.

With the increased recharge limit on wallets from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 until December 30, Ola Money is better positioned to facilitate convenient cashless transactions for citizens and merchants alike, the statement said.

With over 13,000 fuel stations and close to 4,500 LPG outlets,BPCL serves lakhs of people on a daily basis,it added. With the alliance, both driver partners and consumers will be able to pay for their fuel and LPG requirements with Ola Money on VeriFone enabled PoS devices, the statement said.