The committee for strict monitoring of KG D6 block operator
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas has expressed its disappointment over the Petroleum Ministry’s failure to initiate penal action against Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) for its failure to achieve the production outlined under the Field Development Plan (FDP) for the KG D6 block.
“The Committee is disappointed that the reply of the Ministry does not indicate any penal action on the operator for shortfall in achieving the FDP that will arrest the decline in natural gas production. The Committee, therefore, desires that strict monitoring be accorded to operator RIL by the Petroleum Ministry and the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) to ensure the desired outcomes and to reverse the trend of dipping natural gas production from the KG D6 block,’’ the Committee, headed by Aruna Kumar Vundavalli, said in its report tabled in Parliament. At present, the output from the KG block has dropped to 23-24 million metric standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd) from 62-63 mmscmd in August, 2010. The output as per the approved $8.8-billion investment plan should have been 80 mmscmd as on date.
The Petroleum Ministry had told the Parliamentary Committee that it had asked RIL to drill and put on production more gas wells in line with the FDP and take remedial measures to revive the sick wells.
RIL has drilled only 22 out of the 31 wells that it had outlined in the investment plan for D1&D3, the largest of the 18 gas finds in the KG-D6 block. Of these, only 18 were put on production and even out of those put on production, six wells have shut due to high water and sand ingress. Drop in output from KG-D6 pulled down natural gas production from fields operated by private firms to 21.608 billion cubic metres in 2011-12 from 26.775 bcm in the previous year.
Keywords: Petroleum Ministry, Reliance Industries, Field Development Plan, KG D6, Krishna-Godavari basin, Oil Ministry, PAC probe, Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons
the government is not taking any actions against the kg basin as leaving it to the sake of the RIL it was shame to us to decide the kg basin to the reliance comapany limited.
RIL is looting India and AP of it's natural resources. You can go and ask the people from
that region and they will tell you. Locals have not benefitted in any manner in this deal.
It is foolhardy to expect that a government which wants to sack its own minister to placate an industrial group can even dare to punish the same group with penalty leave alone giving a notice. This government is prepared to rob Aam Admi to pay Ambani, by increasing the cost of LPG to common man while at the same time considering to increase the price of gas if and when produced by RIL after prostration by Centre. In reality RIL should be charged for consequential damages for withholding production of gas required by power plants which resulted not only power shortage in the country but also loss of manufacturing GDP. Of course this is only a day dream of common man like me.
Extraction of crude oil by RIL from the KG basin is evidently doubtful.If
oil production from the basin has been hit by some unavoidable
circumstances as mentioned in the article like water and sand ingress then
why RIL is reluctant to performance audit by CAG as per the Production
Sharing Contract. Why it is reiterating for only financial audit and why
it has urged the ministry not to table the CAG report in parliament.
Please Email the Editor