Britain's Hardy Oil and Gas Plc today said it is abandoning work on an exploratory well in a Krishna Godavari (KG) basin block, where Reliance Industries (RIL) is a majority partner, owing to poor gas find.
Hardy has a 10 per cent participating interest and RIL the majority 90 per cent in the D9 block located in KG basin in India's east coast.
The UK company, in a statement, said that the well KGD-A1 drilled for exploration purpose would be "plugged and abandoned".
"While encountering some background gas while drilling, the well encountered poor reservoir sands in both the Middle and Lower Miocene target levels," the company added.
Hardy's stake in D9 block is held through its wholly-owned subsidiary Hardy Exploration & Production (India) Inc.
"The data obtained from this first exploration parametric well is very significant and will be integrated with the existing geological model to improve the prospectivity of the block before drilling subsequent wells," the statement said.
The first phase of the D9 exploration licence provides for drilling of a further three exploration wells in D9.
Following the news, shares of RIL fell 4.25 per cent to Rs 2,042.90 in late afternoon trade on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
