Reliance Industries Ltd, India's largest private firm, has made a huge gas find in a coal block in Madhya Pradesh.
The company discovered 3.75 trillion cubic feet of in-place gas reserves under coal seams in Sohagpur coal bed methane (CBM) blocks in Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh, senior officials said.
This is RIL's first gas find in the CBM blocks. Earlier, the company had found gas reserves in deep-sea blocks off Andhra Pradesh coast and Orissa coast.
The Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries has informed the government of the discovery in Sohagpur West and East blocks and the directorate general of hydrocarbons, petroleum ministry's upstream oil and gas exploration nodal arm, has approved the in-place gas reserves.
"Reliance has made a gas discovery and we have certified the in-place reserves at 3.75 trillion cubic feet," said V K Sibbal, Director General, DGH. Company spokesperson could not be immediately contacted.
CBM is primarily methane gas (80-95 per cent) which occurs in its natural state in coal or lignite bed seams. Sibbal said Reliance had completed first exploration phase in the Sohagpur blocks and is now entering the second phase.
"Recoverable reserves would be established only after more test drilling," he said adding Reliance would drill 12 development wells in the blocks.
Reliance was awarded two blocks from the first CBM licencing round in 2001 -- Sohagpur (West) and Sohagpur (East).
On each block, Reliance met its commitment to drill eight core-holes in the Phase-I work programme, an official said. Core-holes are drilled to obtain data on coal seam thickness, quality, depth and gas content. Coal seam thickness at Sohagpur (East) was between four and eight meters while at Sohagpur (West) it was between eight and 18 meters.
Gas content was found to be between two and 14 cubic meters per tonne on both blocks. After completing the core-holes, Reliance drilled a total of 10 test wells on both blocks, the official said.
DGH estimated 49 billion cubic feet of gas reserves in Sohagpur (East) and 36.82 bcf in Sohagpur (West).
