When the blocks were awarded by the government’s Directorate General of Hydrocarbons the following January, Bora was taken aback, the board member said. ONGC had lost KG D6, outbid by not only one, but two firms—Reliance Industries, which won the block, and Cairn Energy, a European upstream company.
ONGC’s director of exploration thought that something “fishy” was going on, the board member said. “I feel it got leaked out—our numbers got leaked out and somebody was snooping around,” he recalled the director telling him. The director suspected that the bid was opened beforehand and given to Reliance. “In the DGH’s office itself the bid was opened and given to them,” he speculated to the board member. “They took back their bid, and came back with a new envelope.”
“Of course this was unconfirmed,” the board member told me. He wondered if there was “one dark horse” in ONGC who spied for the competition. Were the private companies that cunning? He said almost admiringly, “These people are capable.” – from Caravan
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