RIL ramps up KG-D6 gas output by 20% with new well
11 Jan 2014
Reliance Industries Ltd has reversed the trend of falling gas production from its offshore concession of the D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari Basin, raising output by up to 20 per cent as it added the first new production well in almost four years.
The development should help silence critics as well as the government, which has been deeply anxious as the rapidly sinking production has thrown its energy supply plans out of kilter.
Mukesh Ambani's RIL and its minority partners, the Scotland-based explorer BP Plc and Canada's Niko Resources, began production from the MA-8 well on 2 January, ramping up output from the KG-D6 block to about 13.7 million standard cubic meters per day, company officials told sections of the media t today.
MA-8 is currently producing less than 1.5 mmscmd, but this is projected to go up to 2.5 mmscmd.
Production at KG-D6 had last month dropped to just about 11.7 mmscmd and MA-8 has helped reverse the falling trend of the past three years.
The current output of 13.7 mmscmd is made up of about 8.7 mmscmd from Dhirubhai 1 and 3 (D1&D3) gas field and about 5 mmscmd from the MA field in the same block.
Officials said RIL is also repairing a third of the wells shut at its main D1&D3 gas field to boost output by March.
RIL had to shut 10 of the 18 producing wells at D1&D3 due to sand and water flooding. 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 began gas production in April 2009, hit a peak output of 69.43 mmscmd in March 2010 before water and sand ingress shut down well after well.
The company has so far made 18 gas, and one oil, discovery in the Krishna Godavari basin block in the Bay of Bengal.
