Premature, says RIL about govt penalty on its Panna Mukta-Tapti oil field

The government has ordered Reliance Industries (RIL) to pay a penalty over an arbitration award on its Panna Mukta and Tapti (PMT) oil field, the company has informed BSE in a statement on Tuesday. The company, however, said the notice was premature.

"RIL as part of the contractor for Panna Mukta and Tapti production sharing contracts, has been notified by [the] Government of India (GOI) of its computation of the purported share of GOI's Profit Petroleum and Royalty alleged to be payable by the contractor pursuant to the GOI's interpretation of Arbitration Tribunal's final partial award dated 12 October 2016," RIL said in its statement to BSE."Government's demand notice is premature. The quantification of liabilities (if any) of the parties arising out of the partial award have to be determined by the Arbitration Tribunal after the Parties have made their respective submissions on quantification," it adds further.

An RIL executive said the amount was still to be decided by the arbitration court though media reports quoted a figure of $3 billion as penalties. RIL and Shell hold 30 per cent stake each in PMT fields while the remaining is with state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC).

In October 2016, a London-Based arbitration plan ruled in favour of the Centre on recovery cost from RILand BG Group (now part of Shell) for the PMT oilfields. This was an interim award and final arbitration award was to follow procedural..Read More