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Oil flows from RIL’s KG basin

NEW DELHI: In a significant development, Reliance Industries has begun crude oil production from the nation’s first deep-sea oilfield in the Krishna Godavari basin, an accomplishment that the company may announce in the next few days.

The company’s predominantly gas-rich D6 block in the Krishna Godavari basin on September 17 flowed first oil, said a source in the consortium of Reliance Industries and Niko Resources of Canada, which operates the block.

Reliance, the operator of the block with 90 per cent stake, is likely to make an announcement in the next few days and it is expected that company Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani will announce the accomplishment. “You may hear of it as early as Monday (September 22),” the source said. Block KG-DWN-98/3 or D6 will be the first area in deep-sea to produce crude oil since India opened up its oil hunt programme for private and foreign players in 1999 with the advent of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP).

The Mukesh Ambani-led group operates India’s largest refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat and will start production from another only for exports unit in the next couple of months. It will, however, not refine the D6 crude at its refineries and instead sell it to state refiners.

Reliance, the source said, has initially opened one of the two oil producing wells in the MA oilfield in the D6 block. “Oil flowed at the rate of 200 barrels per day but once system stabilises, the choke will be fully opened to produce more.”

Once both wells are in full operation, the output will rise to 10,000 to 15,000 barrel a day within weeks. Two more wells are planned to be drilled on the field which would raise the output to 34,000 barrels a day (1.7 million tonnes a year). — PTI

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