Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and BP disclosed the sanction of the MJ project (also known as D55) in Block KG D6, offshore the east coast of India, according to a filing in Bombay Stock Exchange.

The project is third of three new projects in the Block KG D6 integrated development plan and its approval follows sanctions for the development of ‘R-Series’ deep-water gas field in June 2017 and for the Satellites cluster in April 2018.

All the three projects together, are expected to develop a total of about 3 trillion cubic feet of discovered gas resources with a total investment of circa INR 35,000 crore. These projects together, when fully developed, will bring about 1 billion cubic feet a day of new domestic gas onstream, phased over 2020-2022.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and MD of Reliance Limited said, “Bringing these three discoveries to production, as promised in 2017, by leveraging the existing infrastructure has been the primary objective of the Reliance - BP Joint Venture.”

“The gas will satiate the increasing demand for clean fuel in the country, save foreign exchange and reduce dependency on imported gas,” Mukesh said.

“We are excited about bringing this gas onshore from our third project on the East Coast of India to power the Indian economy with an environment-friendly fuel and help strengthen energy security while moving towards meeting India's Climate Change Goal,” he added.

Bob Dudley, BP Group Chief Executive, stated, “We are building an important upstream business in India, helping to supply the country’s growing gas market.”

“Working closely with Reliance, we are efficiently developing discovered resources, with focused exploration to give options for the future,” Bob said.

“This latest investment is a further demonstration of BP’s commitment to India and helps support India in addressing the dual challenge and moving to a low carbon future,” he added.

The shares of Reliance Industries traded at Rs. 1331.10 apiece, high at 2.55 points or 0.19 per cent on the BSE.