BP, Reliance To Invest $6B In India’s Deepwater Offshore Gas

UK supermajor BP and India’s Reliance Industries Limited will invest US$6 billion in the development of three projects from already-discovered deepwater gas fields offshore India, BP said in a statement on Thursday.

BP and Reliance will award contracts to continue the development of deepwater gas fields in Block KGD6 off India’s east coast. This project is seen coming on stream in 2020 and producing up to 12 million cubic meters (425 million cubic feet) of gas a day.

The companies intend to file development plans for the other two projects with the Indian government by the end of this year, BP said. The three projects, when developed, are expected to bring a total of 1 billion cubic feet of gas a day in new domestic gas production, and are expected to start production between 2020 and 2022.

“We are delighted to progress these developments, which will provide India with much needed indigenous energy and support the Prime Minister’s call for import substitution and the development of a gas-based economy,” Reliance Industries’ chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said in the statement.

According to BP, India’s current natural gas consumption is more than 5 billion cubic feet a day, and it aims to double gas consumption by 2022. Gas from the three new projects is expected to help cut India’s dependence on imports and account for over 10 percent of India’s expected gas demand in 2022.

Apart from the deepwater gas projects, BP and Reliance also agreed to expand their partnership in India’s downstream sector, where BP has a solid presence, and in areas including differentiated fuels, mobility, and advanced low-carbon energy solutions.

Back in 2011, BP acquired a 30-percent stake in many oil and gas blocks in India operated by Reliance Industries, including the KGD6 block. Since then, the two companies have invested a total of US$1.6 billion in deepwater exploration and production, BP said.