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NEW DELHI, May 20

THE Government expects Reliance's mega gas find in the Krishna-Godavari basin to ultimately yield 45 million standard cubic metres of gas per day (mmscmd) from 2006-07 onwards.

"We anticipate that gas production from D6 blocks of Reliance would be 45 mmscmd from 2006-07," Mr Avinash Chandra, Director-General, Directorate General of Hydrocarbon, said at the promotional road show for oil and gas blocks offered under the fourth round of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) here on Tuesday.

According to Mr Chandra, domestic gas production would increase from the current level of 70 mmscmd to 142 mmscmd by 2006-07, with a significant contribution coming from the Reliance field. Reliance has so far drilled eight wells in the exploration block and has discovered 14.5 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in the block. The company plans to drill 30 wells in the block.

According to the Reliance group President, Mr P.M.S. Prasad, the company's endeavour would be to produce 40 mmscmd or more of gas from the find in two-to-three years' time. On the refinery front, the company plans to export 8-9 million tonnes from its 27 million tonne refinery during the current fiscal, roughly the same as that recorded last fiscal.

"Typically, we would be exporting about 33 per cent of our refinery production this fiscal... roughly 8-9 million tonnes of products," Mr Prasad said.

On the marketing front, RIL plans to have set up 1,000-1,500 retail outlets by March 2004.

"We hope to begin retailing petro-products by March 2004 by which time around 1,000-1,500 petrol stations would be in place," Mr Prasad said.

Last year, RIL secured a licence from the Government to set up 5,849 petrol stations throughout the country.

`300 tonnes of reserves discovered'

Over the last three years, 300 million tonnes of oil plus oil equivalent gas reserves have been discovered in the country, according to the Union Petroleum Minister, Mr Ram Naik.

"So far, a total of nine discoveries spread over Krishna Godavari basin and Gujarat onland with initial in-place reserve estimates of over 300 million tonnes of oil plus oil equivalent gas, have been made under NELP during the short span of less than three years,'' Mr Naik said here today at the promotional roadshow for the fourth round of bidding for oil and gas blocks under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP).

The reserves accretion has come on the back of large discoveries made by Reliance Industries Ltd, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Cairn Energy, UK, according to Mr Naik.

ONGC's find in West Bassein field has an in-place reserve of 30 million tonnes, he added.

The fourth round of NELP offers 24 exploration blocks - 11 onland and 12 in the deepwater regions. So far, in the first three rounds of NELP, the Government has awarded 70 blocks.

On the fiscal front, the Union Budget for the current year has abolished surcharge on income-tax. ``This is in addition to other attractive fiscal terms such as tax holidays, liberal setoff of expenses and fiscal stability,'' Mr Naik said.

The bids for the 24 oil and gas blocks on offer in the current round of NELP closes on September 30 and the contracts are likely to awarded by the end of the current calendar year.

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