Crude oil output from the MA field in Reliance Industries Ltd-operated D6 block in the East Coast has fallen short of the planned production in the past three years.
Giving this information in Parliament on Tuesday, R.P.N. Singh, Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas, said that oil production, which commenced in September 2008, had declined as compared to the estimated output approved in the field development plan by the block management committee.
He was responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha on whether it was a fact that oil production from KG-D6 was continuously declining since 2009.
The D6 block, which has the country’s largest gas fields, has been experiencing a significant drop in gas output, with the contractor (Reliance), claiming that this was because of ‘unforeseen geological surprises’.
Out of six oil/gas wells drilled so far by the contractor in MA field, two producer wells have ceased to flow oil/gas due to water ingress in well bores, Singh said.
“In addition, the contractor has attributed lower oil production from MA field to various surface uncertainties, such as reservoir heterogeneity, weak aquifer support and reduction in net reservoir volume etc,” he said.
The contractor, as per the directive of the management committee, had submitted the revised field development plan for the MA field in February. This plan was deliberated in the management committee meeting of August 7, Singh said.
“The revised field development plan envisages drilling of a new gas well and conversion of two sick oil wells to gas wells in order to maximise the gas and condensate production from the field,” he added.
Last month, in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on estimates of D6 block reserves, the Minister had said that the quantum of gas reserves estimated by the contractor in the block prior to commencement of work was 10.3 trillion cubic feet in case of D-1 & D-3 fields and 681.4 billion cubic feet for MA field as recoverable reserves.
Subsequently, the contractor revised the estimates of recoverable reserves of D-1 & D-3 fields and MA field as 3.10 trillion cubic feet and 788 billion cubic feet, respectively, he said.