Reliance Seeks Contractor to Explore for Coal-Seam Gas, Onshore Oil Blocks
Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s largest natural gas producer, is seeking a contractor to help explore for coal-seam gas and onshore oil.
Reliance is looking for equipment and services for drilling, rigs and production testing for onshore blocks won in auctions that closed in 2001 and 2005, the company said in a tender document on its website. Partners in the block are Oil & Natural Gas Corp., Okland Offshore Holdings Ltd. and the local units of Tullow Oil Plc and Hardy Oil & Gas Plc, it said.
Reliance is seeking similar services to explore for methane gas trapped in coal seams in blocks in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan states, according to the tender. Bids must be submitted before July 21.
Reliance didn’t identify the oil and coal-seam gas blocks. During the auction rounds identified in the tender, the company won 6,850 square kilometers (2,645 square miles) of onshore fields in Assam and Gujarat states and coal-bed methane acreage with estimated reserves of 320 billion cubic meters of gas, according to the website of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, the regulator.
In the coal-seam blocks, Reliance plans to drill 100 test wells annually over the next five years with a depth of as much as 1,700 meters, the tender said.
Coal-seam gas mostly comprises methane on the surface of coal. The gas can be extracted when pressure on the seams is reduced, usually by removing water. India has coal-bed-methane reserves of at least 8 trillion cubic feet in five discovered blocks, the oil ministry said Sept. 25.
To contact the reporter on this story: Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai at npearson7@bloomberg.net.
Rate this Page