Amended PNGRB Act to give legal teeth to petroleum sector regulators

A long-pending amendment to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) Act, 2006, expected in the coming months, will give the sector regulator enough legal teeth to enforce its plan to reclassify natural gas pipelines as “common carriers”, a top PNGRB official told Business Standard.

As a result, the ongoing tussle between PNGRB and aggrieved city gas distributors (CGDs) over the issue is soon feared to intensify after a lull. Legacy CGD players insist that the plan needs more clarity on operational grounds and staunchly maintain that they can't hand over access capacity to new entities