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Reliance, ONGC, BG agree to jointly operate Panna-Mukta

The vexatious issue of operatorship of joint venture Panna-Mukta and Tapti oil and gasfields was resolved on Saturday with British Gas, Reliance, and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation agreeing to manage the fields jointly.

This was an outcome of over a month long negotiations between the three after the two Indian partners rejected the proposal of BG to operate the fields solo in lieu of buying out Enron's stake in the JV, ONGC sources said.

Following the consensus reached at the Joint Operating Committee meeting in Mumbai, the three partners decided to set up a committee to work out modalities for joint operatorship within four weeks, sources said.

Neither ONGC chairman Subir Raha nor BG India chief executive Nigel Shaw could be contacted for comments.

BG had bought Enron's 30 per cent stake for $350 million, revising lower its earlier offer of $388 million after its condition to grab the operatorship snowballed into a major controversy with ONGC making a counter claim.

ONGC served a termination notice on BG, which took over operations of the fields from Enron Oil and Gas India Ltd last month after failure of talks between the partners which saw BG worldwide chief executive Frank Chapman rushing to India for smoothing of the deal.

The three partners would now work out different models to carrry out the rights, duties and obligations of the operation, sources said.

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