RIL share price: RIL advances more than 1% as it starts gas output from Asia’s deepest offshore field

MUMBAI: Shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) advanced more than 1 per cent on Monday after the oil-to-telecom conglomerate and BP Plc announced late on Friday the start of production from the R Cluster, ultra-deep-water gas field in block KG D6 off the east coast of India.

At 9:38 am, shares of the index heavyweight were up 1.08 per cent to Rs 2,013.70, while benchmark Sensex dropped 0.26 per cent to 46,838.01 points.

RIL and BP are developing three deepwater gas projects in block KG D6 – R Cluster, Satellites Cluster and MJ – which together are expected to meet ~15 per cent of India’s gas demand by 2023.

These projects will utilise the existing hub infrastructure in KG D6 block. RIL is the operator of KG D6 with a 66.67 per cent participating interest and BP holds a 33.33 per cent participating interest.

In a release on Friday, RIL said R Cluster is the first of the three projects to come onstream.

The field is located about 60 kilometers from the existing KG D6 Control & Riser Platform (CRP) off the Kakinada coast and comprises a subsea production system tied back to CRP via a subsea pipeline.

Located at a water depth of greater than 2000 meters, it is the deepest offshore gas field in Asia, and the field is expected to reach plateau gas production of about 12.9 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) in 2021.