Another five wells planned at D1 and D3
Reliance plans to drill another five wells at the D1 and D3 gasfields at its eastern offshore D6 block, but only after it has the necessary gas evacuation equipment installed.
At two recently drilled D6 wells, Reliance is still waiting for critical ‘subsea equipment’ like ‘umbilicals’, ‘manifolds’ and ‘Christmas Trees.’ “Reliance will add at least another 10m cm/d to overall D6 production when these two wells start flowing gas,” says an industry source.
“It sees no point in drilling additional wells until it brings in the ‘manifolds’ and other stuff. But this kind of equipment takes nearly two years to deliver.
” Reliance, he adds, is evaluating vendors and will shortly place orders. For now, Reliance is busy focusing its energies on developing its five R-cluster fields at the same block, about 30-km southeast of D1 and D3.
While D1 and D3 lie in 1000-metre water depths, these five R-cluster fields lie in 2200-metre water depths. Reliance submitted ‘declarations of commerciality’ for these fields to the DGH between July 2009 and February 2010 and also submitted an R-cluster field development plan about three months ago (August).
According to this development plan, the R-cluster has a ‘production potential’ of up to 15m cm/d over 10 years. “Reliance is now considering consultants like Aker, Mustang, JP Kenny and Technip for the R-cluster ‘concept to FEED’ study,” we learn.
“It wants to know if these R-cluster fields can be developed simultaneously with the D1 and D3 fields and has given its ‘broad functional requirements’ so the consultants can suggest ‘development options’.” Reliance has so far drilled 20 wells at the D1 and D3 fields of which 16 are producing around 5m cm/d each.
Production from these 16 wells could eventually increase to as much as 7.5m cm/d each. One D6 well is “under maintenance” while another is “in reserve” and two await equipment.
