RIL-RNRL gas tussle: Final HC judgment today

CNBC-TV18 learns that the final order in the prolonged Ambani gas dispute will be announced in the Bombay High Court by Justice JN Patel today. The case relates to the terms of supply of natural gas from KG Basin for the Dadri Project. Anil Ambani's Reliance Natural Resources Limited wanted 28 mmcd of gas at USD 2.34 per mmbtu for 17 years while Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries said that the company would be unable to sell gas below the government approved price of USD 4.2 per mmbtu. In January this year, the division bench had passed an interim order allowing RIL to sell gas to third parties. The order had also mentioned that RIL's gas agreement with others would be subject to the court's final order.

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Here is a verbatim transcript of Ashwin Mohan's comments on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

The wait is finally over, the Ambani gas dispute or the RIL-RNRL case has been the most widely covered high profile corporate litigation that India has witnessed recently in at least the past two years. Sources say that close to 11am today, the Bombay High Court will pronounce the eagerly-awaited final judgment in the case by Justice JN Patel - part of the two member division bench that heard the arguments of both parties.

Recap on Ambani tussle

The RIL-RNRL case is all related to an inherent conflict over the terms of supply of natural gas from RIL's Krishna Godavari Basin to Anil Ambani's Dadri Power plant in Uttar Pradesh. Anil Ambani promoted RNRL wanted a quantity of 28 mmcd of natural gas to be provided at a price of USD 2.34mmbtu for 17 years.

As the court hearing continued, factors like quantity and period began non-issues and pricing is what came into the forefront, RIL was very clear in saying that it couldn't supply gas at a price less than USD 4.2/mmbtu which was the government approached price. So very clearly pricing was the thorn in the flesh as far as both parties were concerned.

Interestingly, in the last few days sometime in January, the Bombay High Court passed an interim order in this case and according to that interim order, the Bombay High Court had allowed RIL to sell gas from the KG basin to the third parties, but the interim order also clearly said that RIL's agreements with the third parties would be subject to the final order and hence the final order today assumes a great deal of importance.