Reliance Industries and partner BP plc have got government approval to prepare a plan to develop the third largest gas discovery in KG-D6 block that produce a little less than 15 million cubic meters of gas per day. A block oversight committee,headed by oil regulator,a few weeks back approved commerciality of Dhirubhai-34 or D-34 gas find in the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block,sources privy to the development said. Once a discovery is declared commercial i.e. it can be exploited commercially,the operator prepares a field development plan (FDP) for bringing the find to production. The Management Committee,which besides Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) also includes representative of oil ministry,however did not approve commerciality of D-29,D-30 and D-31 discoveries in absence of individual well tests of the finds. RIL had taken to MC the declaration of commercility (DoC) of R-series cluster comprising of the four finds - D-29,30,31 & 34. But the MC approved DoC of only D-34. Sources said DGH trimmed down inplace reserves at D-34 to 1.645 trillion cubic feet from 2.207 Tcf estimated by RIL-BP. The MC approved drilling of 11 wells to produce 14.68 mmcmd of gas for 8 years beginning 2016-17. The capital expenditure for developing D-34 was estimated at USD 2.338 billion. But for D-29,30 & 31,the MC rejected the DoC saying neither individual well tests confirming the discovery nor appraisal wells had been drilled to substantiate the finds,it said. RIL-BP had estimated 749 billion cubic feet of inplace reserves in the three discoveries that could produce 5.7 mmcmd of gas after making a capital expenditure of USD 877.2 million. Sources said the MC had last month approved a USD 1.529 billion development plan for producing up to 10 mmcmd of gas from the Dhirubhai-2,6,19 and 22 (D-2,D-6,D-19 and D-22) fields in the KG-D6 block by 2016. RIL with 60 per cent stake is the operator of block KG-D6 where 18 gas and one oil discoveries have been made till date. Of these,Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) gas finds and MA oil discovery have been brought to production. BP holds 30 per cent interest in the block where D1&D3 are the largest gas finds,while Niko Resources of Canada has the remaining 10 per cent. Natural gas output from KG-D6 has fallen to 35.77 mmcmd this month after touching a peak of 61.5 mmcmd in March 2010 as water and sand ingress forced closure of six wells.
