British BP&Reliance Aims to Reign Indian Energy Market With $6Billion Investment

Energy-starved India witnessed another big bang investment as British firm BP and India’s Reliance Group agreed to invest $6 billion to develop deep water gas fields over the next three years.

New Delhi(Sputnik) — The two partners aim to capture a large chunk of the oil and gas market — both upstream and downstream- in India, which consumes four million barrels a day in oil products and is expected to grow by 5-7% per annum for a decade. India today consumes over 5 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas and aspires to double gas consumption by 2022. Under the agreement, they will award contracts to progress development of the ‘R-Series' deep water gas fields in Block KGD6 off the east coast of India. The R-Series (D34) project is a dry gas development in water-depths of more than 2,000 metres, approximately 70 km offshore.

"Development of the three projects, with total investment of $6 billion, is expected to bring a total 30-35 million cubic metres of gas a day new domestic gas production onstream, phased over 2020-2022," Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) said in a statement.

Earlier, India's Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan invited BP to begin sale of petrol and diesel in retail market as it has Indian government's approval of selling through 3,500 fuel retail stations. But BP has decided to go with Reliance in retail market as well.

"The two companies will jointly explore options to develop differentiated fuels, mobility and advanced low carbon energy businesses in India, as India transitions to a low carbon world. The companies expect to collaborate, in addition to the conventional transportation and aviation fuels retailing, on unconventional mobility solutions, addressing electrification, digitization and disruptive mobility trends," RIL & BP announced jointly.

"This strategic partnership not only strengthens the relationship between two global energy leaders, but is also in line with and supports the forward-looking policies and vision of the Government of India," RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani said.

In 2011, BP took a 30% stake in multiple oil and gas blocks in India operated by RIL, including the producing Block KGD6 in a $7.2-billion deal. Since formation of this partnership in 2011, the two companies have invested over $1.6 billion in deepwater exploration and production in the period to May 2017.