RIL, SP Surrender Two More Blocks

Reliance Industries and its partner BP plan to surrender two more exploration blocks, reducing their tally to 14 from 21 a year ago.

Economic Times reports that RIL and BP have been pruning their portfolio since January this year. Regarding these two blocks, the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) has been informed that the contractor had spent $309 million in the two deepwater blocks and wanted to relinquish them after completing more than the committed exploration works, including drilling four wells. RIL said in a letter that "the prospectivity perception of the block is poor and the block falls in high risk-low reward category".

In one block, where Reliance had drilled three wells, it encountered "very good quality reservoir rocks" but "no hydrocarbon shows were recorded", another letter said, the newspaper said.

RIL's exploration & production (E&P) portfolio has shrunk to almost half from 29 in February 2011, when it announced the deal with BP.