Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is setting its sights on adding about 1-3 million standard cubic meters per day of gas production at its eastern offshore KG-D6 fields. The company has set this target from the month of January 2014 onwards as it looks to increase the output from the KGD6 basin.
RIL, along with its partners BP of UK and Niko Resources of Canada have fast tracked the production of the seventh well on the MA oil and gas field in the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in Krishna Godavari basin. According to a source, production on the eighth well too will see the light of day this January.
The production of gas in the basin is expected to receive a huge boost due to this. MA-8 is expected to produce a minimum of 1 mmscmd and a maximum of 3 mmscmd. If the well does produce to its maximum capacity, it will be the biggest producer on KG-D6. Production at KG-D6 has dropped to just about 12 mmscmd and MA-8 will help reverse the falling trend of last three years. The Dhirubhai Gas Fields (D1 and D3) produce 8.5 mmscmd and 3.3 mmscmd is obtained from the MA field in the same block. RIL insiders say that the company is repairing a third of the wells shut down at the main D1 and D3 gas fields to increase output in the first quarter; hopefully by March.
Out of the 18 wells producing gas, RIL had to shut 10 in the D1 and D3 due to sand and water seepage. It had also shut two of the six wells at the MA field due to high water and sand ingress. MA-8 will be the seventh well on the field. The KG-D6 fields, which started rolling out gas in April 2009, gave the best results in March 2010 before water and sand seepage caused problems. The production at this moment was 69.43 mmscmd. D1&D3, the largest of the 18 gas discoveries in the KG-D6 block, produced 66.35 mmscmd, while 3.07 mmscmd was the output from the MA field, the only oil discovery on the block.
D1 and D3 don’t represent the only source of concern for the Mukesh Ambani led industry giant. Production from the MA field which peaked at 6.78 mmscmd in January 2012 has also decreased. Sources said that 11.7 mmscmd of the has produced in the Krishna Godavari basin was sold to urea manufacturing fertiliser plants and the remaining was consumed by the pipeline that transports the gas from the same KGD6 fields.
RIL has made a discovery of, and established 18 gas wells and a lone oil well in the highly sought after Krishna Godavari basin off the Bay of Bengal. MA, the only oil field commenced production in September 2008 and D1&D3 in April 2009.