Reliance Industries Ltd is producing 42 million metric standard cubic meters of natural gas a day from its D6 block in the Krishna Godavari basin, falling behind the target of 69 MMSCMD, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH), which oversees exploration activities in India, said on Wednesday.
At the same time, the deepwater KG-D6 block is producing 13,500 bbl/day, announced SK Srivastava, Director General of Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). Srivastava was speaking after a meeting between oil ministry officials and Reliance Industries executives to discuss the D34 block of the KG D6 basin.
During the meeting, the DGH also agreed to the commerciality of the D34 gas discovery in the KG basin, which was submitted to the regulator by RIL. The D34 discovery is part of the four R-series drillings. And of the four wells in question, only one has been approved. Currently, RIL's D34 field has a capacity of 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas.
The Dhirubhai-1 and 3 or D1&D3 fields are producing less than 35 mmscmd of gas and the rest is coming from MA oilfield.
"Three out of the four discoveries in R series still have some issues," said Srivastava.
RIL, Reliance, the status report filed by the company with the oil ministry, said it has shut three wells due to high water ingress and sanding issues. Current output is from 14 wells out of the 18 wells drilled and completed so far on D1&D3 fields.
The production levels from the basin have been gradually slipping after reaching 60 mmscmd in January. In September, Srivastava said RIL was producing 44 mmscmd from its main D6 block, much lower than the peak output of 80 mmscmd. BP had said that in order to make up for the dropping levels of production, new wells have to be dug.
Srivastava also said the operators, RIL, BP and Niko will submit a report after studying locations for possible new wells.
Earlier this year, Reliance sold a 30 per cent stake in 23 oil and gas blocks, some in the KG basin, to BP in a $7.2 billion deal.
However, BP's views at today's Management Committee meeting comprising of the DGH, oil ministry officials and operators was not taken on record.
Commenting on this, Srivastava told NDTV Profit, "BP is still not a signatory to Production Sharing Contract."
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