Gas output at KG-D6 fields of Reliance-BP fell 7% in June quarter
Mumbai, July 19: The production of natural at the KG-D6 fields operated by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and BP Plc fell by nearly 7 per cent year-on-year in the June quarter.
Production from the second-wave of discoveries in the KG-D6 block peaked in January-March 2024 to 30.6 mmscmd but has since been on the decline. Output has since fallen by 19 per cent.
In an April-June quarter earnings presentation at analyst call, Reliance said gas output in Q1 averaged 24.8 million standard cubic meters per day, down from 26.6 mmscmd in April-June 2025.
The output was lower than 25.2 mmscmd in the preceding January-March quarter.
India consumes around 200 mmscmd of gas currently.
At the analyst call, a company official said, “In KG-D6, whilst there is a natural decline, it’s lower than what we had expected, so we have a plan to offset this natural decline, which I’ll talk about shortly.”
As the operator of KG-D6 block, Reliance holds a 66.67 per cent stake while BP has the remaining 33.33 per cent.
Reliance has so far made 19 gas discoveries in the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in the deepsea of Bay of Bengal. Of these, D-1 and D-3 — the largest among the lot — were brought into production in April 2009, and MA, the only oilfield in the block, was put into production in September 2008.
While the MA field stopped producing in September 2018, output from D-1 and D-3 ceased in February 2020.
Reliance had faced sharper than anticipated decline in output at D-1 & D-3, whose production planning happened before BP came in. The wells it had drilled saw unanticipated water and sand ingress in wells, leading to output fall.
Subsequently, Reliance and BP, which was brought in as a technical partner in 2011, invested about $5 billion in bringing to production three deepwater gas projects in block KG-D6 — R-Cluster, Satellites Cluster, and MJ.
Gas and condensate production from the R-Cluster field started in December 2020 and Satellite Cluster in April 2021. MJ field was put to production in June 2023. At peak, the three were supposed to meet about 15 per cent of India’s total natural gas demand.
BP, which has been assisting Reliance in producing oil and gas from KG-D6 block, has since been roped in as technical partner by state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to assist in arresting and raising oil and gas output from Mumbai High as well as western offshore fields – the biggest in India. (BVI)
