Cairn India’s counsel had said they were ready to sell crude within India provided they got the benchmark price.
Cairn has a production-sharing contract with government under which the company gets 70 per cent of crude produced from Barmer, with the rest going to the government.
Under the contract, government or its nominee can pick up the company’s share of crude and what is not picked up, and sell it to private players or exported, Cairn had claimed, adding after the crude is sold, the government gets 70 per cent of the profits.
It had claimed that as a result of selling excess crude to private domestic companies like Reliance and Essar, at rates lower than international prices, the government was losing about Rs 4.5 crore per day.
Cairn had claimed it had made several representations to the Directorate General of Foreign Trade for permission to export the crude, but did not get any response.
It had written to Indian Oil Corporation to canalise export of the crude, but got no response from it as well. IOCL is the canalising agent for the export of crude.
(Sourced from agencies, feature image courtesy:oneindia.com)
