British firm Hardy Oil and Gas is in talks to acquire 90 per cent stake in a gas discovery block in the western offshore off Gujarat owned by Reliance Industries.
“Hardy continued discussion with the operator to acquire their 90 per cent interest and operatorship. General commercial terms have been agreed and a draft farmout agreement is under review by both parties,” the company said in their operational and financial review of 2015-15. It has also added the agreement for transfer and operatorship will be subject to the approval of the government of India.
Hardy currently owns 10 per cent stake in the block where the gas discovery Dhirubhai-33 (D-33) was made in 2007. Claiming that reserves discovered so far are not economically significant, RIL has said it wanted to exit the Gujarat-Saurashtra offshore basin block (GS-01).
“A draft farmout agreement is under review by both parties and the final outcome of these negotiations will be known in the near term. Following this, a priority will be to secure government approval of the FDP and initiate planning for development,” the British company said.
Hardy, along with RIL have relinquished block KG-DWN-2003/1 (KG-D3) due to access restrictions imposed by the government.
“In KG-DWN-2003/1 further progress in petroleum operations was impeded by defence restrictions imposed in October 2012. Since then the JV had continued to seek unrestricted access to the block without success. RIL and its JV partners finally decided to relinquish the block in line with government's policy,” RIL said in its annual report for 2014-15.
