Reliance Industries Ltd on Monday stuck to its estimate of 14.5 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in its Krishna Godavari Basin in Bay of Bengal, saying the lower reserves announced by its partner Niko Resources did not take into account all the wells drilled in the block.

"We still maintain the same reserve estimates," RIL chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani told reporters on the sidelines of the 2nd Asian Gas Buyers' Summit in Mumbai.
 
Niko, which holds 10 per cent interest in the block (RIL has the remaining 90 per cent) had in November last year stated that its reservoir consultant DeGolyer and MacNaughton had made an arithmetical error in its earlier reserve report which put the total inplace reserves in the block KG-DWN-98/3 at 14.5 trillion cubic feet.

The revised report from D&M, assigned gross in place gas reserves of 8.6 tcf (as compared to 9.9 tcf in the previous report of D&M), including 2.5 tcf proved, 3.4 tcf probable and 2.6 tcf possible. 

Ambani said the reserves estimated by Niko did not take into account the volumes in all the eight wells drilled in the block.

The D&M report did not include the results of the A2 well, the last of the eight wells first-phase exploration campaign, whose evaluation was in progress at the time of the report.

In addition, D&M has used a smaller spacing unit in assigning reserves which resulted in the re-categorising of a portion of the probable reserves from D&M's earlier report to proved reserves. 

Reliance, the operator of the block, estimates the discovery is capable of producing in excess of 60 million standard cubic metres of gas per day from 2006.