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two options to settle Cairn case
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New Delhi, March 7: The cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) is expected to take a call on Cairn India’s stake sale to Vedanta Resources this week.
Sources said the oil ministry would be presenting two options before the cabinet. As the first option, it has suggested that Cairn should accept Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s claims on royalty and abide by the government directives on paying cess.
Alternatively, the government should clear the deal but use legal means to recover the royalty cost from the field’s revenue before calculating the profit.
The $9.6-billion deal is being referred to the CCEA because of a stand-off over the excess royalty ONGC pays on Cairn India’s oil fields in Rajasthan.
“It (stake sale) is too big for one ministry to decide,” oil minister Jaipal Reddy said.
Sources said the oil ministry did not want to be seen as acting in a partisan manner.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, favouring an early decision on the stake sale, had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the “deal faces unexpected regulatory hurdles, which are causing delay and could block the deal entirely”.
In response, the oil ministry had said Cairn Energy took more than three months (end of November) to file a formal approval on selling a majority stake in Cairn India. It added that the deal was being processed expeditiously and a final decision would be taken very soon.
The cabinet note by the oil ministry incorporates the views of the finance, law and corporate affairs ministries.
Reddy said, “We cannot bail out any seller or buyer. We will not compromise on the concerns of ONGC. The claim of ONGC that royalty should be a cost recoverable item, is being supported by us.”
ONGC not only pays royalty on its 30 per cent share of oil from the Rajasthan block but also on partner Cairn India’s 70 per cent share, making the country’s largest onland fields a losing proposition for it.
According to Cairn, ONGC is also contractually bound to pay Rs 2,500 per tonne cess on the 12 million tonnes of projected output from the prolific Rajasthan fields.
The oil ministry wants the twin liability of Rs 21,800 crore on ONGC to be addressed before approving Vedanta’s acquisition of a 62.4 per cent stake held by UK’s Cairn Energy in Cairn India.
Shares of Cairn India today rose nearly 2 per cent to settle at Rs 357.55 on the BSE, while it gained 1.95 per cent to close at Rs 358 on the NSE.