Reliance Industries (RIL) and BP on Tuesday announced the sanction of the MJ project (also known as D55) or the third phase in Block KG D6 offshore the east coast of India.

MJ is the third of three new projects in the Block KG D6 integrated development plan and its approval follows the sanctions for the development of 'R-Series' deep-water gas field in June 2017 and for the satellites cluster in April 2018.

The three projects are expected to develop a total of about 3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of discovered gas resources with a total investment of circa Rs 35,000 crore ($5 billion).

"These projects together, when fully developed, will bring about 1 billion cubic feet a day of new domestic gas onstream, phased over 2020-2022," RIL said in a regulatory filing.

The project is expected to begin production in mid-2022.

Commenting on the development, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director at RIL, said: "Bringing these three discoveries to production, as promised in 2017, by leveraging the existing infrastructure has been the primary objective of the Reliance-BP joint venture. The gas will satiate the increasing demand for clean fuel in the country, save foreign exchange and reduce dependency on imported gas."

BP took a 30 per cent stake in multiple oil and gas blocks operated in India by RIL, including the producing Block KG D6. Since the formation of this partnership in 2011, the two companies have invested over Rs 13,000 crore ($2 billion) in deep-water exploration and production to date.

In addition to the D55 gas discovery announced in 2013, the partnership has combined BP's technology and skills with RIL's execution and operational capability to sustain production from the geologically complex reservoirs in D1D3 on Block KG D6.

--IANS

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