The depleted Tapti gas field of the Panna/Mukta and Tapti (PMT) cluster in Arabian Sea is likely to cease production by the end of this year, Reliance Industries has said.
Tapti gas field, off the west coast produced 0.6 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas in the July-September quarter, down from 3.9 bcf in same period a year ago, RIL said in the second quarter earnings presentation to investors.
The output was lower than 1.9 bcf in April-June this year.
"Production from Tapti (was) lower on account of natural decline," RIL said. "Production from Tapti field is expected to cease in 3Q FY16."
BG Group of UK and RIL hold 30 per cent stake each in the PMT fields while state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has the balance 40 per cent.
Once production ceases, the consortium would move into the decommissioning phase and handover of certain Tapti facilities to ONGC, in accordance with the production-sharing contract.
While Panna/Mukta are primarily oilfields, Tapti is a gas field. The production sharing contract for PMT fields was signed in 1994. Panna/Mukta fields began production in December 1994 and Tapti field began out in 1997-98.
The field produced a peak of 17 million standard cubic meters per day till 2007-08 after which the natural decline set in.
Officials said ONGC has agreed to take over a part of the abandoned assets of the Tapti field to produce from its fields in the western offshore.
ONGC will use the Tapti field assets, which include sub-sea pipelines and gas gathering stations as well as process platform, to advance production of gas from its neighbouring Daman field.
The assets include Tapti gas processing platform, which received gas from sub-sea wells, removes water and other impurities before transmitting it to onshore.
ONGC will lay a small length of pipeline from the Daman field to the process platform, which is connected by a 70-km pipeline to its facility at Hazira.
The BG-RIL-ONGC venture will continue to operate the Panna-Mukta field, which primarily is an oil bearing field located 90-km north-west of Mumbai in the Arabian Sea. It produced 7.2 million barrels of oil and 70.7 bcf of gas.
RIL said Panna/Mukta field produced 1.88 million barrels of oil in the second quarter, up from 1.76 million barrels in the period a year ago. The fields also produced 17.2 billion cubic feet of gas.
"Higher production in Panna-Mukta mainly due to restoration of Mukta-A and better than expected gains from work over wells," the company said.
