Reliance Industries (RIL), the country’s largest company by market capitalisation, has discovered gas in a new well in its NEC-25 block in the Mahanadi basin off the coast of Orissa.
This is the company's eight discovery in the block, which it had won in the first round of the New Exploration and Licensing Policy (NELP-I) in 1999. The block is reported to have recoverable reserves of around 1.1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, which the Mukesh Ambani-promoted company hopes to develop at an investment of around $1.13 billion.
The rate of production of gas from the block is expected to be 35-40 million cubic metres per day (mcmd).
The latest discovery in the Mahanadi shallow-water block, named Dhirubhai-40, has been notified to Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). "RIL is currently evaluating the potential commercial interest of the discovery through additional data collection and analysis," the company said in a statement. Canada-based Niko Resources holds 10% stake in the block.
The NEC-25 block lies to the north of RIL’s D6 block in the Krishna-Godavari block from which the company plans to begin production later this year. At a peak rate, the gas would be produced at 80 mcmd, which is almost equal to the total gas availability in the country. The company is developing the field at an investment of $5.2 billion.
RIL owns 90% stake and Niko 10% in the D6 block, which holds gas reserves of nearly 11.2 tcf. The D-6 block would be RIL’s first producing block in India.
The company had earlier also discovered both oil and gas in an offshore block in the Cauvery basin off Tamil Nadu’s coast.
Reliance currently has stakes in 34 oil and gas blocks in the country, and has made about 34 discoveries (both commercial and non-commercial) in India with a success ratio of almost 60%.
No comments:
Post a Comment