International expert DeGolyer & MacNaughton will submit, by June 2015, its report on the dispute between state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Reliance Industries (RIL) over their Krishna Godavari basin gas fields being inter-connected, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan Wednesday told parliament.
In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Pradhan said that ONGC had requested the court to appoint an independent agency under its supervision to establish the continuity of reservoirs and estimate the volume of gas.
According to ONGC, gas discoveries in its G4 and KG-DWN-98/2 (KG-D5) blocks in the eastern offshore, extend into RIL's KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block. It has filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court alleging RIL has extracted gas upto 18 billion cubic meters from its blocks resulting in loss of several thousand crores of rupees.
"Subsequently, ONGC and RIL, under the supervision of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH), have appointed a third party international expert agency DeGolyer & MacNaughton, Dallas, US to establish the continuity of reservoirs across the ONGC and RIL offshore deep water blocks/areas in KG Basin," Pradhan said.
"The report is likely to be submitted in June 2015," he added.
ONGC claims three wells drilled by RIL on the boundary of the KG-D6 block are within a few hundred meters of its gas fields, while RIL disputes this. Both companies have presented data in support of their claims.
