It was just before a few days that Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) was exploring the Krishna-Godavari river basins for new reserves and also by deepening the existing blocks by a mile to expand its production of natural gas and oil. The efforts have borne fruits; RIL has found a new exploration well in KG-D6.
To supplement ever increasing demand, RIL has found this first exploration well in March this year. The MJ-1exploration well is near Dhirubhai -1 and 3 gas fields in the KG-D6 basin block. This well is similar to an existing MA oil and gas field in the same block and it is targeting a Mesozoic synrift classic reservoir. It will be drilled deeper more than two kilometers, directly beneath D1& D3 fields in the block.
It will be in April or May that this well will be fully operational.According to a pre-drill test result, the best case prospective resource in the well is around 819 billion cubic feet of gas and 56 million barrels of liquids.
Apart from this, to increase the production of natural gas from the largest blocks in the field namely D1 and D3, RIL is drilling a probe well on the fields in order to study reservoir characteristic. To increase the output of the existing blocks and to find new blocks by drilling the parts in KG-D6 basin, Reliance will increase the total production of natural gas and crude oil and meet the demands of fertilizers and power companies. According to sources, RIL had proposed this expansion plan almost a year back to drill the MJ-1 well, but received permission for the same earlier in this year. The approval surfaced with clauses like the cost of the new well would not be recovered unless it led to a commercial oil or gas discovery. The defense ministry of the country also gave its approval for drilling after Reliance relinquished 450 sq.km of area which was hampering surveillance and Air force operations.
In the KG-D6 basins, RIL has a share of 60% while the European petroleum giant BP holds 30 percent and Niko holds 10 percent of the share.In the upcoming two years, Reliance and its partners are supposed to invest $350-450 million in the KG-D6 block by 2014 and $400-500million in the year 2015.MukeshAmbani, head of RIL, has envisioned making India fully independent in demand-supply of crude oil.