Govt may give nod to Reliance Industries' investment plan for 4-satellite fields in KG-D6 block

NEW DELHI: Centre is expected to give green signal to Reliance Industries' $1.529-billion investment plan for the development of four-satellite fields in the flagging KG-D6 block.

The KG-D6 oversight committee, which consists of officials from the Oil Ministry and its technical arm — the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) — is scheduled to meet today to consider the nod for the field development plan (FDP) for the D-2, D-6, D-19 and D-22 fields, which surrounds the presently producing Dhirubhai-1 and -3 fields.

The fields have the potential to produce 10-million metric standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd) by 2016 and will be helpful to srengthen output from the block, which has witnessed 35% decline in output in the last 15 months.

The oversight panel - Management Committee - had in its last meeting on December 2 has decided not to approve the investment plan and also stated that the recommendation made in December 2009 was based on the prices of that year, and the new rates need to decided at the present prices.

RIL and its partners, UK's BP Plc and Niko Resources of Canada, are of the opinion that reworking rates would need several months and would cause loss of the four-month weather window in the Bay of Bengal that started this month.

Later, RIL had decided to cap expenditure on the four-satellite fields at $1.529 billion, give or take 15%. It consists of $30 million pre-development activity cost that RIL and BP are in favour.