Reliance Industries on Friday said that ONGC can have no claims on the about Rs.9,000-crore worth of natural gas that migrated from the state-owned explorer’s fields into RIL’s KG-D6 block as it is a natural phenomenon and RIL is not at fault.
“Migration of oil and gas beyond block boundaries is a natural phenomenon which the contractor has no means to control. Therefore, any suggestion that RIL has breached any obligations or violated any provisions of law or of the PSC (Production Sharing Contract) is incorrect,” RIL said in a communication to its employees.
RIL further said that it had “scrupulously followed every aspect of the Production Sharing Contract and has confined its petroleum operations within the (boundaries of its) KG-D6 Block” in the Krishna-Godavari basin.
RIL’s statement follows a recent submission of U.S.-based consultant DeGolyer and MacNaughton’s draft report saying that about 9 billion cubic meters of natural gas worth about Rs.8,675 crore may have migrated from ONGC’s Bay of Bengal fields (called G-4) to the adjoining KG-D6 fields belonging to RIL.
The report, submitted to the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, RIL, and ONGC, said that the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons made a mistake in laying out the boundaries between the blocks belonging to ONGC and RIL. The seismic data, it said, showed that it was all one big reservoir and that the DGH’s boundaries created an artificial bifurcation.
In other words, D&M maintains that there is no independent gas reservoir in ONGC’s fields that is unconnected to RIL’s KG-D6 field. The G-4 and KG-D6 fields are fully contiguous.
ONGC’s spokesman was unavailable for comment.
