Reliance Industries and its partner BP of UK have sought bids for sale of 5.5 mmscmd of additional natural gas that will be available for sale from their eastern offshore KG-D6 block. The e-auction is slated for 23 April 2021 and the gas supply will start from late April or early May 2021.
Bidders will have to quote a price linked to Platts JKM (Japan Korea marker), the liquefied natural gas (LNG) benchmark price assessment for spot physical cargoes.
The lowest bid that can be placed is JKM minus USD 0.3 per mmBtu, while the highest acceptable bid will be JKM plus USD 2.01 per mmBtu.
At current price, the lowest price for 5.5 mmscmd of gas that RIL-BP is auctioning comes to near USD 6.5 per mmBtu. But they will be entitled to a maximum of USD 3.62 per mmBtu ceiling fixed by the government for a six-month period to 30 September 2021.
The consortium of RIL and BP Exploration (Alpha) is developing deepwater gas fields, namely the R Cluster (D34), MJ (D55) and Satellites & Other Satellites (D2, D22, D29 and D30) in the KG D6 block.
The gas to be produced from the fields has been granted marketing and pricing freedom, but this is subject to a ceiling price that the government fixes every six month. The ceiling price for 1 April 2021 to 30 September 2021 is USD 3.62 per mmBtu. Bidders can seek a supply tenure of three to five years.
The minimum volume one could ask for is 0.01 mmscmd and the maximum could be the full volume on offer.
In the February 2021 auction, RIL picked up two-thirds of 7.5 mmscmd gas sold. Reliance O2C, an affiliate of RIL, picked up 4.8 mmscmd of gas while state gas utility GAIL (India) won 0.85 mmscmd of supplies and Shell 0.7 mmscmd. Adani Total Gas bagged 0.1 mmscmd, the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) 0.2 mmscmd, Torrent Gas 0.02 mmscmd, IRM Energy 0.1 mmscmd, PIL 0.35 mmscmd and IGS 0.35 mmscmd.
RIL-BP started production of gas on 18 December 2020 from the R Cluster ultra-deepwater gas field in block KG-D6 off the east coast of India.
The company is investing USD five billion in bringing to production three deepwater gas projects in block KG-D6 R-Cluster, Satellites Cluster, and MJ which together are expected to meet about 15 percent of country’s gas demand by 2023.
R-Cluster will have a peak output of 12.9 mmscmd, while Satellites, which are supposed to begin output from Q3/2021, will produce a maximum of seven mmscmd. On the other hand, MJ field will start production in Q3/2022 and will have a peak output of 12 mmscmd.
Reliance has so far made 19 gas discoveries in the KG-D6 block. Of these, D-1 and D-3 were brought into production from April 2009 and MA, the only oilfield in the block, was put to production in September 2008. The MA field stopped producing in 2020, and output from D-1 and D-3 ceased in February 2021.
Other discoveries have either been surrendered or taken away by the government for not meeting timelines for beginning production.