The RIL-BP’s giant MJ deepwater block in the KG basin, which would significantly boost its gas output, is expected to start production later this month.
RIL, which is the operator of the block, earlier planned to start production in the December quarter, but it was delayed by three months. With the commissioning of the MJ field, the overall gas output from RIL’s assets in the KG Basin will increase by about two-thirds.
RIL’s production from KG D6 assets is expected to increase to around 30 million standard cubic meters per day (mscmd) in FY24 from the current 19mscmd. The production is enough to meet up to 15 per cent of India’s gas demand.
Reliance and BP are spending about $5 billion on further developing KG-D6 through three different projects, aimed at rejuvenating gas production from the offshore asset. While the first two developments — R-cluster and satellite cluster — have started gas production, MJ is now nearing completion.
The two partners plan to use a floating production system at high-sea in the Bay of Bengal to bring to production the deepest gas discovery in the KG-D6 block. The MJ-1 gas find is located about 2,000 metres directly below the Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1 and D3) fields — the first and the largest fields in the KG-D6 block. MJ-1 is estimated to hold a minimum of 0.988 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of contingent resources.
The field also has oil deposits. Both gas and oil will flow from wells drilled below the seabed to the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, where they will be stripped of impurities. Oil will be loaded on tankers for sale to refineries, while gas will travel onshore through an under-sea pipeline and onwards to customers.
