MUMBAI // Reliance Industries, India's most valuable company, has produced the first oil from a concession off the country's east coast, opening up a new deep-water petroleum province in the oil-importing nation.
Production from the KG-D6 block, which began last week at 5,000 barrels of oil per day, is expected to hit 550,000 barrels of oil and gas daily within the next 18 months. Not only will the new field reduce India's heavy reliance on imported energy, it will also mark a coming of age for Reliance.
"With this, a new frontier area in the deep waters of our East Coast has opened up," said Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries, yesterday. "It will elevate Reliance from a world-class petrochemical and refining player to a global energy major. Reliance has joined the elite club of deep-water operators."
Gas production, originally expected to start at the same time as the oil, had been delayed until January, the company added.
The field is India's first sub-sea development using a floating production, storage and offloading vessel and has been developed at a water depth of 8000 feet (2438 metres). Reliance has discovered 2.5 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves in the KG-D6 block since striking the giant Dhirubhai-26 gas discovery there in 2002.
Gas production from the block is expected to start at 15 million cubic feet of gas per day, gradually increasing to 80 million by the middle of 2010. New production planned by Reliance will increase India's domestic oil and gas production by 40 per cent in the next 18 months.
PMS Prasad, the chief executive of Reliance's oil business, said the delay to KG-D6's gas production was the combined result of "the weather, which isn't under our control, and also the very, very tight supply chain".
He said there had been three cyclones in the area within the last 10 days.
"That was an internal target, but our official target was always 2008 to 2009, and by that measure we are still on target."
The Bombay High Court has barred Reliance from signing any contract to sell gas from the field, pending resolution of a long-running legal dispute with the brother of Mukesh, Anil, whose Reliance Natural Resources Limited has a claim over the gas under a contract signed before the two brothers split the group in 2005.
A Reliance Industries spokesman said if the court had yet to lift the stay on production, then the company would be forced to make further delays. The next court hearing is scheduled for Sept 29. The first shipment of oil from the field was sold on a spot basis to India's state-controlled refining company HPCL.
HPCL and Chennai Petroleum, a unit of the state-owned oil company Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, were the most likely buyers for the field's crude, Mr Prasad said.
"It makes sense for us to sell to the refineries on the east coast of India," he said.
The block produces light density, low sulphur crude oil, making it suitable for India's least sophisticated refineries. Reliance's Jamnagar refinery on India's west coast is capable of refining heavy, sour crudes.
Mr Prasad said that as Reliance needed neither the capital nor the expertise of the world's international oil companies to fully develop the block, it was not actively seeking a buyer for a stake, but may consider a swap agreement.
"It's purely driven by the value proposition. That value proposition has to give us an equally prolific field somewhere else in the world where we want to be," he said.
International oil firms such as Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon and BP are seeking to farm in to discoveries made in the Krishna Godavari basin by Reliance, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Gujarat State Petroleum Company. Brazil's Petrobras and Norway's StatoilHydro have taken 15 per cent and 10 per cent stakes respectively in ONGC's largest gas discovery in the basin.
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The White Lotus: Season three
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AUSTRALIA SQUAD
Aaron Finch, Matt Renshaw, Brendan Doggett, Michael Neser, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine (captain), Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Jon Holland, Ashton Agar, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle