Niko, Reliance to invest $2 B in gas field development

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Tuesday, 05 October 2004, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries Ltd and its Canadian partner Niko Resources will invest over $2 billion in bringing to production their gigantic gas field in the Bay of Bengal and laying pipelines to transport the fuel. "We will invest $1 billion in staged development of D6 deep-water gas reserves (off the Andhra coast) and in excess of $1 billion in building pipelines," Niko Resources executive chairman Edward S Sampson told PTI. Reliance, the operator of the block KG-DWN-98/3 (also known as D6) in the Krishna Godavari basin, is targeting first gas by late 2006 or early 2007. "We expect gas production of one billion cubic feet," he said. US consultant Degolyer and MacNaughton (D&M) has assessed the in-place gas reserves in the first 10 wells in D6 at 11 trillion cubic feet. Additional gas reserves have been found in two subsequent wells in the block, Sampson said adding 13th well was being drilled on the block. Reliance has submitted to the Government for approval a plan to develop Dhirubhai-I and III fields in the D6 block at an investment of $1 billion. An equal amount would be spent on laying a pipeline from Kakinada on Andhra Pradesh coast to the company's first customer, National Thermal Power Corp's power plants in Gujarat. "We anticipate the work to start by early 2005," he said.