"There has been so far no preferential treatment for Indian companies. Further, the yield is not good enough to compensate for the cross-subsidy in the sale of LNG to consumers in India at administered rates. ONGC sells gas at a price of less than $ 3 per million metric British thermal units. The current market rates of LNG are way above this and therefore the returns from the exploration block should be good enough to compensate the subsidy encountered in selling gas in the domestic gas," a senior official at ONGC said.
In this backdrop, the Petroleum Secretary, Mr B.K. Chaturvedi, convened a meeting with the chief executives of ONGC, Indian Oil Corporation and GAIL (India) Ltd on Thursday to discuss the pace of progress of the MoU with Iran.
Following the meeting, it was decided that a four-month period would be given to the Iranians to revert with viable proposals to pursue the MoU. The MoU is being operationalised through a Joint Working Group (JWG) that has met twice so far. The JWG will now be meeting again shortly when the Indian Government's position would be put forth.
