Reliance and BP Announce First Gas from Asia's Deepest Offshore Field

Reliance Industries and BP on Friday announced first gas from Asia’s deepest project, which is expected to meet about 15 per cent of India’s Gas demand by 2023.

With this, RIL and the British multinational oil and gas company have announced the beginning of production from the R Cluster, ultra-deep-water gas field in block KG-D6 off the east coast of India.

R Cluster is the first of the three projects to come onstream. Both RIL and bp are developing three deepwater gas projects in block KG D6 – R Cluster, Satellites Cluster and MJ.

These projects will utilise the existing hub infrastructure in KG D6 block. Mukesh Ambani-led RIL is the operator of KG D6 with a 66.67 per cent participating interest, while BP holds a 33.33 per cent participating interest.

The R Cluster field is located about 60 kilometers from the existing KG D6 Control & Riser Platform (CRP) off the Kakinada coast. It comprises a subsea production system tied back to CRP via a subsea pipeline. The offshore gas field is located at a water depth of greater than 2000 meters, which is considered to be the deepest in Asia. The field is expected to reach plateau gas production of about 12.9 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) in 2021.

“We are proud of our partnership with bp that combines our expertise in commissioning gas projects expeditiously, under some of the most challenging geographical and weather conditions. This is a significant milestone in India’s energy landscape, for a cleaner and greener gas-based economy. Through our deep-water infrastructure in the Krishna Godavari basin we expect to produce gas and meet the growing clean energy requirements of the nation,” RIL Chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani said.

“This start-up is another example of the possibility of our partnership with Reliance, bringing the best of both companies to help meet India’s rapidly expanding energy needs. Growing India’s own production of cleaner-burning gas to meet a significant portion of its energy demand, these three new KG D6 projects will support the country’s drive to shape and improve its future energy mix,” BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney said.

By 2023, the peak gas production from the three fields is expected to be around 30 mmscmd (1 bcf/d) which is expected to be about 25 per cent of India’s domestic production and will help in decreasing India’s dependence on imported gas.

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