Reliance Industries (RIL) has failed to deliver the second consignment of crude oil from its eastern offshore Krishna-Godavari basin D6 block to Chennai Petroleum Corporation (CCPL), as output from the field has been erratic.
Reliance was to deliver a consignment of about 60,000 tons of oil from MA-1 field in the predominantly gas-rich block in the Bay of Bengal to CPCL on November 23-24, but failed to meet the deadline, sources said.
Output from the field has been erratic with more than expected natural gas flowing out of well along with crude oil. Production from the field varies on daily basis sometimes falling to as low as 8,000 barrels per day and then suddenly rising to 12,000 bpd.
RIL has not been able to accumulate the requisite quantity of oil to be sold to CPCL and so it defaulted on the delivery plans.
The field, which started crude oil production in September, last week suffered an equipment failure leading to closure of the facility for 3-4 weeks. It was not clear when the second consignment would be delivered.
Sources said crude oil from the MA-1 field is stored on a floating, production, storage and off-loading vessel (FPSO) at the well-head and once critical volumes are reached it is transferred to a ship for transportation to a refinery.
