To settle doubts on whether the two are drawing from each other?s designated hydrocarbon reserves, state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Reliance Industries have agreed to share their data.
ONGC chairman and managing director Sudhir Vasudeva said: ?The issue is being blown out of proportion. We suspected there could be a possible drawing of our reserves from the side of RIL and that?s why we asked the authorities to intervene and find out.?
As a result, ONGC has decided to sign a confidentiality agreement with RIL, which will then allow them to exchange data on the reserves and flow rates in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin.
Vasudeva said the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), the regulatory body for the upstream or oil and gas exploration and production sector in India, has intervened in the matter and now both the companies have agreed to share their individual data and information to see whether there is a possibility of RIL drawing from ONGC?s reserves.
He was talking on the sidelines of an event for the launch of the company?s third offshore supply vessel to beef up its marine logistics division.
He said this is not an uncommon occurrence world over and there are instances where there are fields that either overlap or are laterally connected. In such cases, an intermediate party undertakes a study of both the blocks and through a process of unitisation, find out if there are any drawn down from the other?s resources.
Vasudeva, however, quashed concerns that both the companies are now at loggerheads and have gone into a spat due to the issue.
?These situations do occur and these are solved amicably everywhere and that is what we are also doing. DGH is the intervening party and both the companies have agreed to co-operate,? he said.
Last year, ONGC and RIL had signed an memorandum of understanding to share each other?s infrastructure in the KG basin to avoid setting up additional duplicate facilities and see that RIL?s idle infrastructure could be used.
Vasudeva clarified that the current tussle over sharing of data will not lead to any consequential impact on the MoU.
ONGC has two blocks ? the DWN 98/2 and G4 ? which borders RIL?s KG-D6 block where it has two producing fields of D1 and D3.
According to recent media reports, ONGC had written to the DGH that the company feels that due to continuity of block there are chances that RIL might be drawing gas from its reserves as a result it wants DGH to intervene and establish its validity. This would require RIL sharing various data related to the basin with ONGC and DGH.
However, while RIL denied such a possibility, it agreed to share data only if ONGC also does the same.
