Mischievous piece: Government refutes media report on natural gas allocation being stopped

Calling it a mischievous piece, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on Sunday refuted factually incorrect statements that the government has stopped doing natural gas allocation to city gas distributors by a news agency PTI, in a series of tweets through its official Twitter handle.

The ministry terming it as the spread of misinformation said, “When the fourth estate agrees to be used to advance vested interests, truth becomes a casualty.”

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Quoting sources, PTI in a news article had said, “The Oil Ministry has stopped making fresh allocation of natural gas from domestic fields to the city gas sector, threatening the viability of Rs 2 lakh crore investment planned in the sector besides leading to a hike in CNG and piped cooking gas prices to record levels.”

The ministry listed correct facts through its statements on Twitter, they are:

1. The global LNG prices have gone up by around 300% in last 1 year. Ministry is only waiting for the updated data for the period October 21 to March 22 from CGD entities for the allocations in April 2022. This is yet to be received from all entities.

2. CGD entities have requested for Quarterly allocation. This proposal is under active consideration.

3. Based on data of Oct 20- March 21 consumption, the allocation for April-October 21 was revised as per the guidelines in April last year.

4. Additional allocation for CGD would necessarily require some reprioritisation amongst the consuming sectors which is a sensitive decision.

5. The ministry only heard out CGD entities and did not make any suggestions/decisions. Therefore, it is absolutely mischievous to say that CGD entities were asked to increase prices.

On the contrary, the ministry also listed out the factual wrong statements/claims made through sources by the PTI, it noted:

1. The ministry has stopped doing new allocation.

2. Request for maintaining supplies at last 2 months average.

3. The gas allocation was not increased in April 2021.

4. The ministry asked them to import LNG and pass on cost to customer.