BP and Reliance Industries to progress and expand partnership

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and BP are to award contracts to progress development of the ‘R-Series’ deepwater gas fields in block KGD6 off the east coast of India. The R-series (D34) project is a dry gas development in water depths of more than 2,000 metres, approximately 70 km offshore. The R-series fields will be developed as a subsea tieback to the existing control and riser platform off block KGD6. The project is expected to produce up to 12mn cm (425mn cf) of gas a day, coming onstream in 2020.

This is the first of three planned projects in block KGD6 that are expected to be developed in an integrated manner, producing from about 3tn cf of discovered gas resources. RIL and BP plan to submit development plans for the next two projects for government approval before the end of 2017. Development of the three projects, with total investment of $6bn, is expected to bring 30mn–35mn cm/d (1bn cf/d) of new domestic gas production onstream, phased over 2020–2022.

India today consumes over 5bn cf/d of natural gas and aspires to double gas consumption by 2022. Gas production from the integrated development is expected to help reduce India’s import dependence and amount to over 10% of the country’s projected gas demand in 2022; benefiting India and domestic consumers at large.

RIL and BP will expand their existing partnership for strategic cooperation on new opportunities across India’s energy sector. Under the agreement the two companies will jointly explore options to develop differentiated fuels, mobility and advanced low carbon energy businesses in India, as India transitions to a low-carbon world.

India is a rapidly growing market with a population of 1.3bn people, consuming around 4mn b/d of oil products and with demand for fuels expected to grow by 5–7%/y over the next decade.