RIL to invest Rs 2500 cr in oil, gas exploration

Reliance Industries (RIL) is planning to invest Rs 2,500 crore in exploration and production of oil and gas over 24-30 months.

Besides the proposed investment plan, the company has a separate capital expenditure for development of block KG-DWN-98/3 (KG-D6) where it has found huge gas.

The gas find in the Krishna-Godavari basin is expected to yield a total in-place gas volume of 14 trillion cubic feet.

RIL has already put in place a development plan for producing 40 million cubic metre per day of gas initially from the KG-D6 block by 2006-07.

The plan has been submitted to the directorate general of hydrocarbons, said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, at the company's 30th annual general meeting here on Thursday.

Reliance has also struck oil in an onshore block in Yemen, where it has 25 per cent interest. The four wells were drilled in this offshore exploration block and three discoveries were made.

The share of recoverable oil reserves for Reliance from this block is estimated to be about 50-60 million barrels.

Ambani said the "company is taking steps to bring it to production during this financial year". Ambani informed shareholders that the company was "looking at value generation opportunities overseas as tools for energy security for the company and for the country.

Our plan is to achieve 30 per cent energy security for Jamnagar refinery within the next 10 years and up to 50 per cent by 2020.

This will be achieved through acquisition of small and medium sized oil companies and participation in exploration and development projects" while adding that the regions of focus were Africa, Middle East, Australia and Latin America.