Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) and BGEPIL, part of Royal Dutch Shell Group, will transfer their stakes in the Panna-Mukta oil and gas fields to ONGC, the Government of India’s (GoI) nominee, on December 21, 2019.
ONGC, RIL and BG Exploration & Production India Ltd. (BGEPIL) each hold 40%, 30% and 30% participating interest, respectively.
Trivikram Arun, MD, BGEPIL, said “Shell is proud to have been part of this journey and privileged to have partnered with Reliance, ONGC and the Government of India. Our teams have worked relentlessly to ensure a safe handover of the producing fields from the PMT (Panna-Mukta-Tapti) JV to ONGC at the end of the term.”
The production sharing contracts for the Panna-Mukta and Tapti fields, executed by the PMT JV with the government in 1994, will expire on December 21. The Tapti field had ceased production in 2016 and its process platform facilities were handed over to the ONGC (GoI nominee) in 2016.
B. Ganguly, president, E&P, RIL, said, “At their peak, Panna-Mukta have contributed to nearly 6% of India’s oil production and almost 7% of India’s gas production in the year 2007-08. Reliance has been a part of this journey and contributed, by providing energy, to the growth and development of India’s oil and gas sector.”
Decommissioning and site restoration of residual Tapti facilities, including five unmanned platforms and infield pipelines, are currently being carried out by the PMT JV under India’s first offshore decommissioning and site restoration project. “The Tapti decommissioning and other commercial activities would continue in BGEPIL even after Panna-Mukta hand over,” said RIL and Shell in a joint statement.
The PMT fields were the among the first in India to be operated under a joint operatorship model. The Panna-Mukta fields had produced 211 million barrels of oil and 1.25 TCF (trillion cubic feet) of natural gas since December 1994.
In 2019, the average monthly production from the fields was 10,000 barrels per day of crude oil and 140 mmscf (million metric standard cubic feet) per day of natural gas.
