India Okays Price Parity Between Coalbed Methane and Natural Gas

Mining Weekly reported that according to an official with India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, the country’s government has agreed to a proposal for coalbed methane operators to “price their production on par with domestic natural gas.”

It’s expected that a uniform gas price will force coalbed methane operators to lower their prices.

As quoted in the market news:

However, the pricing parity would only be effective after the government revised natural gas pricing, which has been hanging fire in the last year, the official said.

The price parity approval would be effective in the case of three CBM operators, Great Eastern Energy, Essar Oil and ONGC Limited. The approval in the case of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has been withheld with the government seeking additional information from the company.

Great Eastern Energy operated the Raniganj South block, Essar Oil the Raniganj East block and ONGC the Jharia block, all in eastern India.

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