RIL shuts oil, gas field due to cyclone 'Laila'

Reliance Industries has shut crude oil and gas production from its Krishna Godavari basin MA fields in the Bay of Bengal as a precautionary measure to avoid damage from tropical cyclone 'Laila'.

The company shut oil and gas production from the MA field lying in prolific KG-D6 block on Tuesday a source in know of the development said. Gas production from the Dhirubhai-1 and 3 fields was, however, not affected.

MA fields were producing around 32,000-33,000 barrels of oil per day and 8 million standard cubic meters per day of gas. "This has stopped since yesterday. The shutdown will be for a minimum 48 hours," the source said.

KG-D6's current gas production of around 63 mmscmd included 8 mmscmd from MA fields, and with the fields being shut, the output would come down to around 55 mmscmd.

A company spokesperson offered no comments.

The source said Reliance has also suspended drilling operations at KG-D6 and a neighbouring KG-D3 block. It had two deepsea drilling rigs at KG-D6 and one at KG-D3 and drilling till the storm passed.

"The oil from MA fields is produced through a floating storage system and as a precaution it has been shutdown. As a result the production of gas that accompanies oil from MA fields, which otherwise goes through a undersea pipeline to onshore, has also been shut," the source said.

Also, the drilling rigs can sustain some disturbance from cyclone and so operations have been suspended and moved away from the path of the storm.

Cyclone Laila is moving across the Bay of Bengal toward east coast and is forecast to reach hurricane strength before making landfall in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday.

Operation of refineries on the east coast was, however, not affected. Hindustan Petroleum Corp has a unit at Vizag and Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd units near Chennai.

Operations at Cairn India's offshore Ravva oil and gas fields in the KG basin were also not impacted.