Reliance Industries limited (RIL) has slashed its gas reserves in its main production fields, the KG-D6 block, by 70 per cent to 3.10 trillion cubic feet (tcf) citing “unforeseen geological surprises.”
Giving this information in a written reply to Lok Sabha on Thursday, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas R. P. N. Singh said that RIL had initially estimated 10.3 tcf of recoverable reserves in the Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) gas field in the KG-D6 block.
However, it revised the estimates of recoverable reserves of D1&D3 fields to 3.10 tcf. Mr. Singh said the fall in output was due to the fact that one-third of the 18 gas producer wells in D1&D3 fields ceased to produce gas due to water/sand ingress in well bores.
MA field
In the MA field, two of the six wells had stopped due to similar reasons. “The operator (RIL) has attributed the lower gas production (as compared to approved plan) from D1&D3 fields to unforeseen geological surprises and reservoir,” Mr. Singh added.
The Directorate-General of Hydrocarbon (DGH) has attributed the fall in output to non-drilling of the required number of gas producer wells in D1&D3 fields by the contractor in line with the addendum to initial development plan (AIDP).
In the AIDP, RIL had committed to drill 31 wells and produce 80 million metric standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd) of gas by this time of the year. But, output is now less than 29 mmscmd.
D1&D3 began production in April 2009, and had produced 2 tcf of gas over the past three years. MA oilfield in the same KG-D6 block was estimated to hold 681.4 billion cubic feet (bcf) of recoverable gas reserves but RIL had revised it to 788 bcf, Mr. Singh said.
