Strategic Objective

Maximise stakeholders’ value by finding, producing, and marketing hydrocarbons and to provide sustainable growth while catering to the needs of customers, partners, employees, and the local communities

Oil and Gas E&P

Key focus of the E&P business has been safe and reliable operations and project delivery while maximising production from its deepwater and Coal Bed Methane (CBM) fields. With commissioning of the MJ field, KG-D6 production has been ramped up to 30 MMSCMD, thereby contributing approximately 30% of India’s gas production. This will significantly reduce the dependence on costly imported gas and bridge the gap in India’s energy requirements, especially in times of geopolitical uncertainty and constrained supply.

> `20,000 Crore

Highest annual EBITDA

242 BCF*

Gas Production (RIL’s share)

4.43 MMBBLs

Oil & Condensate Production (RIL’s share)

*Production figures include KG-D6 and CBM

Naresh
Narang

Sanjay
B. Roy

Ravikumar
Prekki

Amit
Mehta

R. Ravichandran

Avinash
Pathak

Industry Overview

2023 continued to be a volatile year for the oil and gas industry, balancing the energy transition aspirations and energy security against a backdrop of heightened tensions in the Middle East and concerns about a global economic slowdown. With China’s reopening in the first half of 2023, the global oil markets were expected to support oil demand during the year. However, robust US shale supply growth, warm winter weather, increased renewables, and fast interest rate hikes forced OPEC+ to pare back oil production for 18 months to firm up crude markets, even as geopolitics became more complex. The Brent crude oil price averaged ~US$ 83/bbl. Gas availability remained tight in 2023 as incremental global LNG production fell short of expectations.

Business Performance

Revenue and EBITDA were up 48.0% and 48.6%, respectively. This was mainly due to higher gas and condensate production and partly offset by lower price realisation.

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

AVERAGE GAS PRODUCTION*

(MMSCMD)

* Production figures include KG-D6 and CBM

KG Basin

KG-D6 Deepwater Production Update

Since the commencement of production, Block KG-D6 established several global benchmarks in terms of operational performance, including 99.9% uptime and more than 13 years of incident-free operations.

The next wave of projects – R Cluster, Satellite Cluster, and MJ – have been commissioned and are currently under production. These projects have leveraged the hub infrastructure in place, thereby reducing cost.

Average production for FY 2023-24 from the three fields together is ~27 MMSCMD gas and ~18,000 bbls per day of oil and condensate. Production is in line with expectations.

Based on the comprehensive assessment undertaken with more than two years of production data, three additional wells in R Cluster and one additional well in Satellite Cluster are being proposed to be drilled. This is expected to provide incremental recovery of ~240 BCF of gas from these fields.

In line with the increasing gas production, three rounds of e-auction were successfully completed. Overall, 15 MMSCMD gas contracts were signed with buyers across Fertiliser, CGD, Refineries, and Aggregators.

Condensate production commenced from the MJ Field in KG-D6 Block in April 2023, after which first auction process was launched in May 2023. Five rounds of auction were conducted and 12 cargo offtakes were successfully completed by the end of March 2024.

~27 MMSCMD

Average gas production in FY 2023-24

Exploration Strategy

RIL’s exploration strategy is focused on finding additional gas accumulations that can be tied back to the existing world-class infrastructure, using an infrastructure-led exploration (ILX) approach.

Block KGUDWHP-2018/1 (KG-UDW1) was awarded to RIL-BP JV under the OALP II licensing round, and the Petroleum Exploration License (PEL) was issued in August 2019.

Post completion of 3D Seismic Acquisition and Processing campaign, the first exploration well was drilled in the Block, and the drilled well data are under analysis.

During the year, RIL acquired Block KG-UDWHP-2022/1 (KG-UDW2) under the OALP VIII licensing round. The contract for the Block was signed in January 2024.

Coal Bed Methane

RIL is currently producing Coal Bed Methane (CBM) from its block SP (West)–CBM–2001/1. More than 300 wells are in production, with an average output of 0.64 MMSCMD gas during the year.

To augment and sustain production, a 40 multi-lateral horizontal well programme is being executed in SP (West). This is the first time in India that such horizontal wells are being drilled for CBM. Reliance has already drilled 13 horizontal wells, out of which 10 wells are put on production. Preliminary results are encouraging.

Reliance Gas Pipeline Limited, a subsidiary of RIL, operates the 302 km Shahdol-Phulpur Pipeline from Shahdol (MP) to Phulpur (UP) connecting the CBM Gas fields with the National Gas Grid. This provides access to consumers across the country.

Outlook

Gas is expected to play a key role as a transition fuel, with its share in the energy mix expected to increase from 6% to 15% by CY 2030. Reliance’s current portfolio mix is ideally placed to help meet this increased demand.

RIL currently produces nearly 30% of India’s domestic gas. Further development efforts are ongoing to augment gas production in deepwater and CBM by utilising its existing infrastructure in the area.