Production has started at the deepwater MJ Field in the Bay of Bengal offshore India, Reliance Industries Ltd. and BP announced June 30.

The MJ gas and condensate field is the third project in the Reliance-operated KG D6 Block that the partners are developing. Production from the R Cluster started in December 2020 with production at the Satellite Cluster following in April 2021.

Together, the three developments in the Krishna Godavari Basin are expected to send 30 MMcm/d, or 1 Bcf/d, to the Ruby FPSO once MJ achieves peak production. At its peak, production from the KG D6 block will account for a third of India’s domestic gas production.

Discovered in 2013 about 2,000 m directly below the currently producing Dhirubhai-1 and Dhirubhai-3 fields, MJ was sanctioned in 2019. The MJ field is in water depths of up to 1,200 m about 30 km from the onshore terminal at Gadimoga on the east coast of India. MJ, an HP/HT gas and condensate field, will have production from eight wells. Peak production at MJ is expected to reach 12 MMcm/d of gas and 25,000 bbl/d of condensate. The Ruby FPSO will process and separate the condensate, gas, water, and impurities, before sending the gas onshore for sale. Condensate is stored on the FPSO before offloading to shuttle tankers for supply to Indian refineries.

Reliance operates the KG D6 block with 66.67% interest on behalf of partner BP with 33.33% interest.