Ministry of Defence clears RIL gas blocks
In a major relief to Reliance Industries, Defence Ministry has agreed to relax the 'No-Go' zones imposed on its producing KG-D6 gas block and discovery block of NEC-25 in Bay of Bengal and permitted oil and gas activities with certain conditions.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) had in all declared 7 blocks, including RIL's Krishna Godavari basin KG-D6 block and gas discovery area of NEC-25 in the North East Coast (NEC) region, 'No-Go' zones for reasons like overlapping with proposed Naval base or being close to missile launching and Air Force exercise area.
While MoD has relented on RIL blocks, five other areas of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), BG Group of UK and Cairn India will continue to be under 'No-Go' areas and no oil and gas activity will be allowed, official sources said.
Sources said 30 per cent of the 7,645 square kilometre KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in the Krishna Godavari basin overlapped with the Navy's firing and exercise area and was branded a "No-Go" zone by the Ministry of Defence.
MoD was of the view that any exploration and production activities near its Naval Base would hamper surveillance and detection operations and the noise generated due to exploration activities would also compromise the sonar and other radar functionalities.
RIL agreed to relinquish 495 sq km of area that fell in the "No-Go" area, following which Navy agreed to realign the boundary required for naval operations for its proposed base to allow oil and gas activities in the remainder of the
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