Anil Ambani confident of an agreement with RIL on gas linkage

Mumbai, Jan 4 (UNI) ADAG chairman Anil Ambani today expressed confidence over firming up of a gas linkage agreement with Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) of his elder brother Mukesh Ambani for the future power projects, being taken up by Reliance Energy.

Talking to newsmen here on the sidelines of the announcement of Reliance Power's mega IPO issue, he said ''Reliance Power will have a win-win situation on the settlement of dispute over the gas supply before the court's deadline of February.'' Without going into the details of the case, he said the matter was sub judice and added that negotiations were on with RIL as regards to supply of gas.

The Bombay High Court had, in a petition, before it ruled out any intervention in the commercial aspect of the contract and wanted both the companies to settle it among themselves. The court would only examine questions relating to law, it had observed.

Mr Ambani went on to say that the ''Country now have more gas after the recent discoveries and all the gas production and pipeline companies needs credit worthy gas customers and Reliance Power is one of them.'' Incidentally, 40 per cent of Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Power projects needed gas and for that, he is dependent on his rival brother's company Reliance Petroleum, which was to supply the gas to all these power projects.

Mr Ambani said ''February might be the red month to settle the dispute.'' UNI AD-VK SSS SKB1924