State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) will lose about Rs 4,000 crore in revenue and start making cash losses after the government slashed the natural gas prices by a steep 26 per cent by benchmarking it against rates prevalent in gas-surplus nations.
Prices of natural gas, which is used to produce fertilizer, generate electricity and gets converted into CNG for use in automobiles and piped natural gas for household cooking, was from April 1 cut to USD 2.39 per million British thermal unit – a rate about 37 per cent lower than the cost of production.
“These rates are unsustainable for us. We have already told the government that the gas pricing should be freed. There should be complete pricing and marketing freedom,” ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Shashi Shanker told PTI here.
