New Delhi: Reliance Industries has stated that it will start natural gas production from the ‘R-Cluster’ gas field in the flagging ‘KG-D6’ block in the Bay of Bengal from the second half of the 2020-21 fiscal.
Reliance and its partner BP Plc of UK had in June 2017 announced an investment of Rs 40,000 crore in the three sets of discoveries to reverse the flagging production in KG-D6 block. These finds were expected to bring a total 30-35 million cubic metres (one billion cubic feet) of gas a day on stream, phased over 2020-22. ‘R-Cluster’ will be first to come on stream.
“R-Cluster development is on track for first gas in 2H FY21,” the company said in an investor presentation after its fourth-quarter earnings.
Four of the planned six wells that would produce gas from the field have been completed and the fifth one is being drilled currently, it said while stating that first offshore installation campaign is underway and is expected to be completed in Q1 FY20.
The second set is called the ‘Satellite Cluster’ for which all major orders have been committed and engineering work is in progress. “Manufacturing of components of Subsea Production System (SPS) has commenced,” the company informed..
Reliance has so far made 19 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 and MA – the only oilfield in the block, was put to production in September 2008.