LNG News Editor:
Reliance Industries, the Indian conglomerate and a leading oil, natural gas and chemicals company supplying rising gas volumes to supplement LNG imports, reported a jump in earnings from energy exploration and production amid higher gas prices for more Bay of Bengal volumes.
The main domestic exploration and production portfolio of Reliance comprises conventional oil and gas blocks in the Krishna Godavari Basin KG-D6 block on the East Coast of India and the Mahanadi Basin as well as two coal-seam gas (CSG) blocks, Sohagpur (East) and Sohagpur (West) in Madhya Pradesh state in central India south of New Delhi.
Onstream
The Reliance oil and gas exploration and production division reported revenues for the fiscal year to the end of March 2022 increased 3.5-fold to 7,492 crore Indian rupees ($973.2M) versus 2,140 crore rupees ($277.9M) in the previous year.
Reliance’s KGD6 projects are in partnership with UK major BP. They have brought on stream two out of three development blocks.
The onstream fields are called R-Cluster and the Satellite-Cluster and the third, which is still to start up, is called the MJ field.
“MJ field development work is on track to commence production by the third quarter of fiscal 2023 (year-end 2022) with the commencement of the lower and upper well completion campaigns,” Reliance explained.
The Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) platform construction activities are on schedule and the vessel is expected to arrive in India in the July-to-September quarter of 2022.
“The final offshore field installation campaign is in progress despite adverse weather conditions and unusual currents encountered during execution,” stated Reliance.
Fourth-quarterly E&P revenues came to 2,008 crore rupees ($261M) compared with 848 crore rupees ($110M) in the prior-year quarter.
“This was primarily due to higher production from KGD6 post commencement of gas production from the R-Cluster and the Sat-Cluster field coupled with higher gas price realisation in KGD6 and coal-seam gas,” said Reliance.
The company said the average price realization for KGD6 gas was $4.92 per million British thermal units in fiscal 2022 versus $3.96 per MMBtu in the previous fiscal year.
Reliance added that the current combined average production from these two fields was 18.0 million standard cubic metres per day.
Gas produced from KGD6 during the year amounted to 149.5 billion cubic feet.
Figures in the statement showed that CSG production in the year came to 10.2 Bcf, down from the previous year’s 11.8 Bcf.
Reliance gas prices
Reliance said the average gas prices realised for KGD6 in the fourth quarter jumped to $6.13 per MMBtu from $3.99 per MMBtu in the same three months of fiscal 2021.
The company’s gas prices realised for CSG in the quarter were higher at $7.64 per MMBtu.
The Government has also notified companies that the second-half 2022 natural gas price ceiling had been set at $9.92 per MMBtu for the KGD6 gas.
Reliance, based in Mumbai, is a conglomerate also involved in petrochemicals, textiles, retail, telecoms and media.
Its fiscal 2022 annual net profits came to a record 67,845 crore rupees ($8.8 billion), an increase of 26.2 percent.
