Reliance Industries is likely to hit peak output of 80 million standard cubic meters per day from its eastern offshore KG-D6 fields in 2012-13 fiscal, the Economic Survey said today.
The KG-D6 fields, off the Andhra coast, has helped double the natural gas availability in the country but has for the past few months seen a sharp dip. Production fell from 60 mmscmd achieved in mid-2010 to 52-53 mmscmd currently.
"The approved field development plan for Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (first two of nearly a dozen gas finds in the KG-D6 block that have been put on production) envisages gas production to the tune of 80 mmscmd from the third year of commercial production, i.e. With effect from 2012-13," the pre-Budget statement on health of the economy said.
Gas production from KG-D6 began on April 1, 2009. "The current gas production from the KG-D6 field is about 53 mmscmd, of which about 45 mmscmd is being produced from D1 and D3 fields and about 8 mmscmd from the MA oilfield," it said.
The gas output from KG-D6 has helped the nation's natural gas production jump 12.80% to 53.59 billion cubic meters in 2010-11 as against 47.51 bcm in 2009-10.
The Survey, which was presented to the Parliament today, said Reliance and Cairn India have helped push up India's crude oil production by about 12.67% to 37.96 million tonne during the current fiscal.
For a nation that is 75% reliant on imports to meet its crude oil needs, the Krishna-Godavari basin deep-sea oil find by Reliance, and Rajasthan's Barmer desert discovery by Cairn will for the second year in a row help show growth in an otherwise stagnant domestic output.
"During the current financial year (2010-11), production of crude oil is estimated at 37.96 million tonne, which is about 12.67% higher than the crude oil production of 33.69 million tonne during 2009-10," the pre-Budget statement on health of the economy said.
Domestic crude oil production has remained 33-34 million tonne and natural gas at about 32 billion cubic meters during the past five years.
The rise has been primarily due to increase in crude oil production from Rajasthan. "Crude oil production by Cairn Energy India Pvt Ltd started in block RJ-ON-90/1 with effect from August 29, 2009 at the initial production rate of 3,500 barrels per day. Current crude oil production from this block is about 125,000 bpd (6.25 million tonne)," it siad.
Besides, Reliance's predominantly gas rich KG-D6 block, off the east coast, is producing a little less than one million tonne of oil.
The survey said India has begun production of gas from lying below coal seams, called coal bed methane (CBM), with currently CBM production at about one lakh cubic meters a day.
"In view of unfavourable demand-supply balance of hydrocarbons in India, acquiring equity oil and gas overseas is one of the important components of enhancing energy security," the Survey said.
The government is encouraging national oil companies to aggressively pursue equity oil and gas opportunities overseas.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), has 40 projects in 15 countries. Oil India has 12 projects in 8 countries while Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has 9 projects in 6 countries.
"The total investment by oil PSUs (OVL, OIL, GAIL, IOC, BPCL and HPCL) overseas is more than $13 billion (Rs 59,000 crore)," it said.
OVL produced about 8.87 million tonne of oil and oil equivalent natural gas in 2009-10 from its overseas assets in Sudan, Vietnam, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, Colombia and Brazil.
The latest acquisition in May 2010 by OVL is 11% participating interest of Carabobo-1 project in the hydrocarbon-rich Orinoco belt of Venezuela, with a proposed investment of $1.3 billion.
The projected production is 400,000 barrels of oil per day and the first oil is expected in 2013.
India's oil refining capacity is estimated to touch 185.40 million tonne by April 1, 2011 and 238.96 million tonne by the end of 2011-12 from currently 177.97 million tonne, the Survey said.
"Refinery production (crude throughput) during 2009-10 was 160.03 million tonne (excluding only-for-exports Jamnagar refinery of Reliance) showing an increase of 16% over 2008-09. During April-November 2010, it was 106.53 million tonne," it said.
There has been substantial increase in pipeline network in the country with current figures of 28 product pipelines of 11,037 km length and 67.2 million tonne capacity.
