BP, Reliance Industries go ahead with gas field project off India

The UK-based energy giant BP and Reliance Industries sanctioned the Satellite cluster project that will see the development of deep-water gas fields in the block KG D6, offshore India.

The companies are moving forward to develop the gas fields in an integrated series of projects, bringing new gas production for India, BP said in a statement.

The project is second of three in the Block KG D6 development. The first of the projects, development of the ‘R-Series’ deep-water gas fields, was sanctioned in June 2017. Together the three projects will develop a total of about 3 trillion cubic feet of discovered gas resources with a total investment of around 40,000 crore Indian rupees (US$6 billion).

They are expected to bring a 30-35 million cubic meters (1 billion cubic feet) of gas a day of new domestic gas production onstream, phased over 2020-2022.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of RIL, said, “this development supports the country’s imminent need of increasing domestic gas supply and is a firm step towards making India a gas-based economy.”

The Satellites cluster is a dry gas development and comprises four discoveries with five well subsea development in approximately 1700 meters water depth, up to 15 kilometers east and southeast of the producing D1D3 fields in KG D6 block.

The first of the KG D6 projects to be sanctioned, the R-series project, is already in execution phase with all major contracts awarded.

India currently consumes over 5 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas and aspires to double gas consumption by 2022. Gas production from the integrated development is expected to help reduce India’s import dependence and amount to over 10 percent of the country’s projected gas demand in 2022, benefiting India and domestic consumers at large.