Reliance Industries has been slapped with two separate demand notices by the government — one seeking $2.81 billion (about ₹24,500 crore) for producing gas belonging to state-owned ONGC, and another for failing to meet the deadline for setting up a battery cell plant.

The $2.81 billion demand note follows the Delhi High Court’s order on February 14, overturning an international arbitration tribunal ruling that held Reliance and its partner BP Plc of the UK not responsible for paying any compensation for the gas they produced and sold, which had allegedly migrated from adjoining fields.

“Consequent upon the Division Bench judgment, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas has raised a demand of $2.81 billion on the PSC contractors namely Reliance Industries, BP Exploration (Alpha) Ltd and NIKO (NECO) Ltd,” Reliance said in a stock exchange filing.

Originally, Reliance held a 60 per cent interest in Krishna Godavari basin deep-sea block KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6, while BP had 30 per cent and Canadian firm Niko held the remaining 10 per cent.

Subsequently, Reliance and BP took over Niko’s interest in the production sharing contract (PSC) and now hold 66.66 per cent and 33.33 per cent, respectively.

Battery deadline

Separately, Reliance said its step-down subsidiary Reliance New Energy Battery Storage Ltd on March 3 received “a letter from the ministry of heavy industries levying liquidated damages at the rate of 0.1 per cent of the performance security (₹50 crore) for each day of delay from January 1, 2025”.

The penalty was for the “delay in the achievement of Milestone 1 under the programme agreement executed with MHI in connection with 5 GWh manufacturing capacity awarded under the Performance-Linked Incentive Scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell,” it said.

The liquidated damages or penalty computed till March 3, 2025 was ₹3.1 crore.