New Delhi: Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation’s largest oil agency, has walked away with half of the pure gas that Reliance Industries Ltd and its companion bp of the UK provided in the most recent auction of the gasoline used to generate energy, produce fertilizer, was CNG and used for cooking functions. IOC received 2.5 million normal cubic meters per day trip of the 5 mmscmd of gas auctioned final month, sources with information of the matter mentioned.
The oil refining and advertising and marketing firm, which was the top bidder even in the earlier auction of gas from the jap offshore KG-D6 block of Reliance-bp, bid the volumes on behalf of seven fertilizer vegetation. City gas corporations together with GAIL Gas Ltd, Mahanagar Gas Ltd, Torrent Gas, Indian Oil Adani Gas Ltd, and Haryana City Gas secured a complete of 0.5 mmscmd of gas for turning into CNG for sale to vehicles and piped to family kitchens for cooking functions.
State gas utility GAIL and refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) received 0.6 mmscmd every whereas Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (GSPC) walked away with 0.5 mmscmd and Shell one other 0.2 mmscmd, they mentioned. Reliance-bp, which two years again reversed the declining development in home gas output by bringing to manufacturing their second wave of discoveries in the KG-D6 block mendacity in deepsea of the Bay of Bengal, are actually ramping up provides.
Natural gas, a cleaner-burning, environment friendly gasoline, is being seen as a transition gasoline for nations to maneuver from polluting hydrocarbons to zero-emission fuels. Reliance-bp in the most recent tender provided 5 mmscmd of gas for a interval of three years beginning June 1. Bidders have been requested to cite a variable ‘v’ over and above the JKM worth, the spot market benchmark for liquefied pure gas (LNG) delivered to Japan and South Korea.
Sources mentioned the e-auction began on May 19 and ended on May 23 – the longest period of an auction for the reason that time operators have been allowed to promote gasoline by open tender. At the top of the e-auction, gas was offered to 16 patrons at a worth of JKM + (plus) USD 0.75 per mmBtu for 3 years, they mentioned including on the present JKM worth of USD 9.2 per mmBtu, the value for KG-D6 gas involves round USD 10.
This charge compares with the capped worth of USD 6.5 per mmBtu that Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the state-owned behemoth, gas for gasoline produced from legacy or previous fields. Reliance-bp had in April offered 6 mmscmd of gas. IOC had walked away with nearly half of the 6 mmscmd of gas offered in an e-auction on April 12 whereas GAIL purchased 0.7 mmscmd, Adani-Total Gas Ltd 0.4 mmscmd, Shell 0.5 mmscmd, GSPC 0.25 mmscmd and IGS one other 0.5 mmscmd.
In that auction too, the ultimate bid worth got here at USD 0.75 per mmBtu premium over the JKM worth (JKM + USD 0.75 per mmBtu), sources mentioned. But the bidders will solely must pay the ceiling or the cap worth that the federal government fixes bi-annually for gas produced from troublesome areas, akin to deepsea and high-temperature, high-pressure (HTHP). The ceiling worth for April to September is USD 12.12 per mmBtu.
Gas produced from wells drilled beneath the seabed is used to provide electrical energy, make fertiliser, or was CNG for powering vehicles or piped to family kitchens for cooking in addition to in industries. In May final 12 months, Reliance-bp had auctioned 5.5 mmscmd of incremental gas from the newer discoveries in the KG-D6 block, benchmarking it to the identical JKM gas marker.
The worth found in that e-auction got here at a USD 0.06 low cost to the JKM (Japan-Korea Marker) LNG worth. Prior to that, the duo had offered 7.5 mmscmd of gas at a low cost of USD 0.18 per mmBtu to JKM.
Reliance has to this point made 19 gas discoveries in the KG-D6 block. Of these, D-1 and D-3 — the biggest among the many lot — have been introduced into manufacturing in April 2009, and MA, the one oilfield in the block, was put into manufacturing in September 2008. While the MA discipline stopped producing in September 2018, output from D-1 and D-3 ceased in February 2020.
Since then, Reliance-bp is investing USD 5 billion in bringing to manufacturing three deepwater gas tasks in block KG-D6 — R-Cluster, Satellites Cluster, and MJ — which collectively are anticipated to fulfill about 15 per cent of India’s gas demand by 2023.
