Written by: ENS Economic Bureau
2 min readNew DelhiJun 22, 2012 01:57 AM IST
First published on: Jun 22, 2012 at 01:57 AM IST
NIKO Resources of Canada,which owns a 10 per cent stake in Reliance Industries RIL Krishna Godavari D6 block has cut estimates of the proved and probable gas reserves at the KG-D6 block by 81 per cent to 1.93 trillion cubic feet tcf from 9.65-9.9 tcf,sending the RIL stock tumbling by 2.58 per cent to Rs 718.60 on the BSE on Thursday.
In 2006,RIL had scaled up the estimated reserves to 11.3 tcf and cited higher gas volumes for quadrupling investments to 8.8 billion from the earlier 2.4 billion. RIL owns 60 per cent of the block and is the operator while 30 per cent is held by UKs BP. An RIL spokesperson declined to comment on the development.
Natural gas output at KG-D6 fields has dipped to 31.33 million standard cubic meters a day mscmd after hitting a peak of 61.5 mscmd in June 2010. RIL had in 2006 stated that output would rise to 80 mmscmd by 2012-13. Production is further slated to drop to 28 mmcmd this fiscal and to 20 mmscmd in 2012-13,Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy told Parliament last month.
In its Reserves and Contingent Resources Update,Niko,said the total proved plus probable natural gas reserves in its various blocks have fallen almost 51 per cent to 377 billion cubic feet equivalent bcfe mainly due to lower reserves in KG-D6.
The 7,645 sq km KG-D6 Block has 19 oil and gas discoveries of which production from the MA oil find began in September 2008 and from the D1amp;D3 gas discoveries in April 2009. Niko estimated that production from satellite fields would begin in 2015 and expect to increase production to 41 mmscmd.
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