Reliance Industries Ltd will commence natural gas production from its deepest discovery in the KG-D6 block this quarter, meeting 15 per cent of India’s gas demand.

KG-D6 off the Andhra coast is India’s only deepwater block under production.

The block averaged 20 million standard cubic meters per day (mscmd) of production in the January-March quarter, the company told investors post-presentation of the March quarter earnings.

Reliance and its partner, UK supermajor BP, are now nearing the start of production from their giant MJ deep-water project, which will significantly boost gas output from the prized east coast asset.

“MJ field is expected to commence production in 1Q FY24 (April 2023 to March 2024),” it said.

The company, which is the operator of the block, earlier planned to start production in the December quarter, but it was delayed by three months.

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.

Start of MJ will take KG-D6 gas production to 30 mscmd in FY24, Reliance said in the presentation.

“Testing and commissioning underway in the MJ field,” it said. “One well opened as part of the ongoing testing of the integrated production system.”

The company has already sold 6 mscmd of gas to companies in the city gas, power and fertiliser sectors.

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 KG-D6 block. MJ-1 is estimated to hold a minimum of 0.988 trillion cubic feet of contingent resources.