New Delhi, Aug. 7 (PTI): The Supreme Court today extended a stay granted by Gujarat High Court on a government directive to pool prices of imported liquefied natural gas so as to keep the generation cost from the Dabhol power plant low.

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhan while issuing notices on new applications filed by Maharashtra government and public sector firms GAIL, IOC and BPCL ordered status quo till August 9 in view of the cases coming up before Delhi High Court and Gujarat High Court on August 8 and 9.

The bench also said the issue of vacating stay on the government directive would be decided on August 14.

Essar Steel had earlier challenged government's decision of averaging the long-term LNG price of Petronet LNG Ltd with the high cost short-term fuel purchase for Dabhol power plant in Delhi High Court. Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation had challenged the order, which raised prices of LNG for existing Petronet customers, in Gujarat High Court.

While seeking vacation of the interim stay granted by the Gujarat High Court on July 31, GAIL in its application today stated if the policy was not implemented its pipeline, which connects Dahej in Gujarat to Dabhol plant in Maharashtra, would remain idle and the entire investment would be wasted.

The Maharashtra government and the state electricity board sought vacation of stay on the ground that there was a real urgency as the Dabhol project would come to a halt if LNG was not supplied by GAIL.

According to the PSUs, if price pooling was not allowed, they would not be able to sell RLNG purchased at a price in excess of USD 9 per million British thermal unit (mBtu) from Petronet. Such "distress sale would be huge and a straight loss to it", GAIL said.