NEW DELHI: Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries’ KG basin D6 block has seen natural gas output slip further, leading the government to disallow $2.756 billion in cost, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Monday.
RIL and its partners BP plc of the UK and Canada’s Niko Resources produced less than 16 per cent of the 31,793.28 million standard cubic metres (mscm) target from the KG-D6 block in 2013-14.
Output fell to 4,461.91 mscm or 13.75 per cent of the targeted 32,458.72 mscm in 2014-15 and to 3,939.97 mscm or 12.24 per cent of the target in the following year, he said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.
In 2016-17, RIL and its partner produced 2,641.67 mscm of gas till February against the target of 29,316.69 mscm, he said.
Pradhan said the Gujarat government firm GSPC, too, has produced much less than target in the three years but no penalty has been levied on it.
Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation produced 23.44 per cent of the targeted 470 mscm of gas from its KG-OWN-2001/3 block in 2014-15, which when down to 11.09 per cent of the targeted 1210 mscmd in the following year. In the current fiscal, just 6.29 per cent of the targeted 1,850 mscm gas has been produced.
“The gas production from D1 and D3 fields in this (KG-D6) block (of RIL) is much less than the production rates approved in addendum to Initial Development Plan,” he said.
Pradhan added that RIL set up facilities to produce gas of 80 million standard cubic meters per day but “failed to adhere to approved field development plan in terms of drilling and putting on stream the required number of wells and consequent achievements of projected gas production profile in AIDP”.