Reliance Industries and BP Plc will start natural gas production from R-Series gas field in the flagging KG-D6 block in the Bay of Bengal by 2020, the UK firm said today.
Gas production from other newer fields will start by 2021, the UK firm said in its 2017 annual report released today.
While RIL-BP are implementing project to bring to production R-Series of gas field in the KG-D6 block, a government oversight panel headed by upstream regulator DGH had last month approved their USD 4 billion investment plan in two other sets of gas discoveries.
BP in its annual report stated that R-Series project in KG-D6 block is "currently under construction" and is "expected start up (is between) 2018-2021."
Besides, satellite fields in the Krishna Godavari basin block are under "design and appraisal phase" and is expected to start-up production by 2021.
In June last year, the partners had announced that they had taken an investment decision to progress development of the R-Series deepwater gas fields in Block KG D6 off the east coast of India, BP said. "The R-Series fields will be developed as a subsea tieback to existing infrastructure in the block. The project is expected to come onstream in 2020 and is the first of three planned projects in Block KG D6 to be developed in an integrated manner."
BP, which holds 33.33 per cent stake in KG-D6 block, said in October last year, field development plans for the Satellite Cluster and D55 developments were submitted for requisite approvals.
RIL is the operator of the block, holding the remaining 66.67 per cent.
BP had in mid-June last year announced investing Rs 40,000 crore in the three sets of finds to reverse the flagging production in KG-D6 block. These finds were expected to bring a total 30-35 million cubic metres (1 billion cubic feet) of gas a day onstream, phased over 2020-22.
The so-called Management Committee headed by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), has already approved separate field investment plans for MJ (D55) as well as a set of six satellite fields and R-Series discovery.
MJ gas find is located about 2,000 metres directly below the currently producing Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1 and D3) fields in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block and is estimated to hold a minimum of 0.988 Trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of contingent resource.
Besides MJ-1, four deepsea satellite gas discoveries -- D-2, 6, 19 and 22 are planned to be developed together with D29 and D30 finds on the block.
The third set is the D-34 or R-Series find.
The government had in 2012 approved a USD 1.529 billion plan to produce 10.36 mmscmd of gas from four satellite fields of block KG-DWN-98/3 (KG-D6) by 2016-17. The four fields have 617 billion cubic feet of reserves and can produce gas for eight years.
However, the companies did not begin the investment citing uncertainty over gas pricing.
Now that the government has allowed a higher gas price of USD 6.78 per million British thermal unit for yet-to-be- developed gas finds in difficult areas like the deep sea, RIL and BP have decided to take up their development. This rate compares with USD 3.06 per mmBtu for currently producing fields.
RIL-BP kept the USD 3.18 billion investment plan for D-34 or R-Series gas field in the same block, which was approved in August 2013. About 12.9 mmscmd of gas for 13 years can be produced from D-34 discovery, which is estimated to hold recoverable reserves of 1.4 trillion cubic feet.
RIL has so far made 19 gas discoveries in the KG-D6 block. Of these, D-1 and D-3 -- the largest among the lot -- were brought into production from April 2009, but output has fallen sharply from 54 mmscmd in March 2010. They together with MA oil and gas field, the only field in production, currently produce 4.9 mmscmd.
Other discoveries have either been surrendered or taken away by the government for not meeting timelines for beginning production.
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