RIL to start gas production at KG-D6 fields in early March

Bagru (Jaipur), Feb 3 (PTI) Reliance Industries Ltd will
start natural gas production from its prolific eastern
offshore KG-D6 fields in the first week of March, India's
Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey said Tuesday.

Reliance had last week won the Bombay High Court approval
to sell gas from KG-D6. "We have been told that Reliance will
start gas production in the first week of March," he said at a
function organised to inaugurate the Mundra-Delhi oil product
pipeline.

RIL will initially start gas production from eight
wells, with an initial output likely to be 5 mmscmd (million
standard cubic metres) per day. This will rise to 15 mmscmd by
March-end and to 40 mmscmd by July/August.

Production planning would enable the allocation of the
fuel within the sectors already prioritised by the Government,
Pandey had said earlier, adding simultaneously Reliance will
finalise the model gas sale agreement and ink sale deals
before production starts by the end of February.

Last week on Saturday the Bombay High Court had allowed
Reliance to sell gas from KG-D6 at USD 4.20 per million
British thermal units in accordance with the Government's gas
utilisation policy, which gives priority to fertiliser units
followed by existing power plants.

India faces an acute shortage of natural gas and the
current availability of 105 mmscmd meets only 55 per cent of
the demand. But Reliance was previously restrained by the
Bombay High Court from selling KG-D6 gas to any company other
than Anil Ambani Group firms and state-run NTPC.

Pandey had said that the Government intervened in the
dispute to get the ban lifted so that the fuel-starved
fertiliser and power companies get natural gas.