RIL plans $2.33 bn investment in R-Series gas field

Reliance Industries (RIL) plans to invest up to $2.338 billion to produce about 15 million standard cubic metres per day of gas from the R-Series gas field in its eastern offshore KG-D6 block.

The Dhirubhai-34 discovery, known as the R-Series field, has gross in-place gas reserves of 1.64 trillion cubic feet, which, according to Reliance, can be brought into production in 4-5 years, sources privy to the development said.

The proposal to declare the field commercially viable -- a prerequisite before investments can be made to bring it to production -- is likely to come up before the KG-D6 block oversight committee this week.

The Management Committee for KG-D6 has one member each from Reliance and its two partners, BP Plc of the UK and Niko Resources of Canada, besides oil regulator DGH and the Petroleum Ministry.

Sources said the MC is likely to consider Declaration of Commerciality of four discoveries -- Dhirubhai-29, 30, 31 and 34 -- in the KG-DWN-98/3, or KG-D6, block. The DGH has raised objections on technical data for the D-29, 30 and 31 finds and has asked Reliance to withdraw the current proposal and resubmit it later. The MC will only consider the DoC for the D-34 field.

Reliance believes D-34 can produce 14.68 mmscmd of gas from 11 wells for eight years, they said, adding that the investment figures were only tentative, with a limited view of assessing commerciality of the find and a firm field development plan would be submitted after the DoC is approved.

It had previous submitted a FDP for four satellite fields surrounding the currently active Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1 and D3) fields in KG-D6 block. The proposal to invest $1.529 billion for producing up to 10 mmscmd 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 is awaiting Oil Ministry approval.

Sources said Reliance believes D-29, 30, 31 and 34 hold gross in-place reserves of 2.2 trillion cubic feet and can produce a peak output of up to 20 mmscmd. But since the DGH has asked D-29, 30 and 31 to be disassociated, the D-34 reserves of 1.267 tcf are being considered.

The company has so far made 18 gas discoveries in the KG-D6 block. Of these, D-1 and D-3 -- the largest among the lot -- were brought into production from April, 2009.

It had in July, 2008, submitted a FDP for nine satellite gas discoveries (D-2, D-4, D-6, D-7, D-8, D-16, D-19, D-22 and D-23) with an estimated capex of $5.6 billion and reserves of 1,708 billion cubic feet (bcf).

Reliance later submitted an optimised development plan for the four satellite gas fields at the end of year 2009.

Reliance estimated 1,733 bcf of in-place gas reserves in the four finds, of which 626 bcf can be produced. However, the DGH trimmed down the estimates to 1,342 bcf and 617 bcf, respectively.