Reliance Industries has refused to follow the oil ministry order to swap its Krishna Godavari (KG)-D6 block gas with an Andhra city gas company, saying “trading” in scarce natural resource was not permissible under the gas utilisation policy.

The ministry had ordered that a part of the 2.6 million standard cubic metres per day of KG-D6 gas allocated to state-owned Gail India be diverted to Hyderabad-based Bhagaynagar Gas Ltd (BGL) under a so-called gas swapping guidelines.