Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and BP plc said Thursday they are moving ahead with the integrated development of the discovered deep-water gas fields in Block KG D6 off India’s eastern coast by sanctioning the ‘satellite cluster’ project.
The announcement comes a few days after the Centre hiked the price of gas produced locally from deep water, ultra-deep water, high temperature and high-pressure fields by 7.6 per cent to $6.78 per million metric British thermal unit (mmbtu) for the first half of FY19 from $6.30 per mmbtu, spurring the gas producer to start development.
The ‘satellite cluster’ is a dry gas development and comprises four discoveries with five well sub-sea development in 1,700 metres water depth, up to 15 km east and south-east of the producing D1D3 fields in KG D6.
The ‘satellite cluster’ is the second of three projects in the Block KG D6 integrated development. The first of the projects — development of the ‘R-Series’ deep-water gas fields — was sanctioned in June 2017. Together, the three projects will develop about 3 trillion cubic feet of discovered gas resources with a total investment of ₹40,000 crore ($6 billion). They are expected to bring a total 30-35 million cubic metres (1 billion cubic feet) of gas a day new domestic gas production on stream, phased over 2020-2022.
Gas production from the integrated development is expected to help reduce India’s import dependence and account for over 10 per cent of the country’s projected gas demand in 2022, benefiting domestic consumers.
India consumes over 5 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas and aspires to double consumption by 2022.
“This development supports the country’s imminent need of increasing domestic gas supply and is a firm step towards making India a gas-based economy,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, RIL, which holds a 60 per cent participating interest in the block KG D6.
These new developments will produce much needed energy for India’s thriving economy, said Bob Dudley, Chief Executive, BP Group, which has a 30 per cent interest the block.
The first of the KG D6 projects to be sanctioned — the R-series project — is already in execution phase with all the major contracts awarded. The satellite cluster project will draw on execution synergies with the R-series project being developed concurrently, the operator said.