From correspondents in Maharashtra, India, 01:33 PM IST

India's most valuable company, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) Wednesday said that the company has discovered natural gas in KD-III well in the Krishna-Godavari basin off India's east coast.

The well, KG III 5-P1, is the second gas discovery in the shallow water block, with an area of 1,100 square km in the Krishna basin off the coast of Orissa.

The block was awarded to RIL under the third biding round of new exploration licensing policy (NELP). RIL holds 100 percent interest in the block.

'The well was drilled at water depths of 151 metre and was drilled to the target depth of 3,500 metre. The well encountered clastic (a type of rock) reservoir with gross hydrocarbon column of around 32 metres in Miocene section and four metres of Pliocene section,' a RIL spokesman said.

Miocene and Pliocene are geological strata.

'The two pay zones were established through wire-line based technology called reservoir characterisation imager. This discovery, namely 'Dhirubhai - 37', has been notified to government of India and Directorate General of Hydrocarbons,' he informed.

RIL is currently evaluating the commercial utility of this discovery, he added.

The Indian government had launched NELP to accelerate the pace of hydrocarbon exploration in the country. So far, six rounds of NELP have been announced.

The much awaited NELP-VII, in which 57 oil and gas blocks are likely to go under the hammer, was scheduled to be launched on Nov 5, but will now be launched not before the second week of Dec to attract more foreign participation in oil and gas exploration.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)