Reliance Industries has shut its seventh well on KG-D6 gas block due to high water and sand ingress as it awaits regulatory nod to carry out urgent workover to plug the problem responsible for drastic fall in output.
The company had on November 29 shut well B4 on the main producing fields of Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) in KG-D6 block “due to high water cut/sanding issues’’, according to a status report of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH).
The shutting of the seventh well saw output from D1&D3 fields drop to 19.02 million standard cubic meters per day from about 20 mmscmd a month ago.
Together with 4.25 mmscmd from MA oilfield in the same block, KG-D6 produced 23.27 mmscmd of gas in the week ended December 2, DGH said in the status report dated December 3.
Fall in production
RIL has so far drilled 22 wells on D1&D3 fields but has put only 18 on production so far. D1&D3, which started gas production in April 2009, had touched a peak of 55 mmscmd in August 2010 before the beginning of water and sand ingress in wells.
The company had closed six wells since end-2010 and last month the seventh well was shut.
The same problem has held to shutting of one-third of the wells on MA oilfield in the same block. Output from MA is half of the peak rate it had achieved in 2010.
Maintenance job
Sources said RIL had last year proposed to do workover or maintenance job to revive the sick or closed wells but the Oil Ministry and DGH are yet to give their go ahead.
The $100-120 million spending on workover is part of the capital Budget for current fiscal which along with the same for 2010-11 and 2011-12 is pending approval.
Oil Ministry says it has withheld approvals pending RIL agreeing to give the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) access to its books to conduct a second round of audit. The audit has not begun because of difference over scope of the scrutiny.
RIL has so far made 18 gas and one oil discoveries in the Krishna Godavari basin block in Bay of Bengal. While the lone oil find MA went on stream in September 2008, largest among the gas finds, D1&D3 were put on production in April 2009.
Oil Minister M. Veerappa Moily had previously informed Parliament that RIL had not drilled its committed 31 wells on D1&D3 field, which was the main reason why the current output does not match the targeted 80 mmscmd for this time of the year.
The government, he had said, does not accept RIL’s contention that geological reasons alone were responsible for the decline.