The Petroleum Ministry on Friday announced that it will protect the interest of NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation), India's largest power company, in its current battle over supply of gas from the Krishna-Godavari areas granted to Reliance Industries.

The Ministry stated that it has been averred that the Ministry of petroleum and natural gas is seeking to cause loss to the NTPC. It also declared that it is committed to protect the interests of NTPC definitely.

The ministry also opposed the significant growth in the capital spending of the oil field from $2.45 billion to $8.83 billion, while the capacity of production was approximated to have only doubled from the earliest 40 million units of gas every day.

Mr. J. P. Chalasani, Chief Executive of Reliance Power, stated that they believe that the Petroleum Ministry will take all measures to assure that NTPC receives 12 MMSCMD of gas from RIL for next 17 years, at a cost of $2.34 per MBTU.

He also added that the estimate made by Ministry seems to be incorrect and evidently include royalty and corporate taxes, which wrongly amplifies the sum of government share of profit as fixed in the agreement of production sharing.

In the agreement of KG-D6 project, an allegation has been made that the government would receive only Rs 500 crore as against the contractor's stake of Rs 50,000 crore. This allegation is wrong. In fact, the government expects to make around Rs 84,000 crore.

Shares of NTPC, on Friday, closed at Rs 204.85, up 0.34% or Rs 0.70. The total quantity of shares traded was 536,349 on the BSE.

Shares of Reliance Industries (RIL), on Friday, closed at Rs 1,928.65, up 1.61% or Rs 30.65. The total quantity of shares traded was 772,522 on the BSE.