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Cyclone Laila bearing down on India's Bay of Bengal
(5/19/2010 - OGI: Mumbai) Cyclone Laila is expected to make a direct hit on the oil and gas producing region of the Bay of Bengal offshore India's Andhra Pradesh by tomorrow with high winds of 155 km/hr and waves.
Official statements today said a high alert has been issued and evacuations have begun from the onshore Visakhapatnam, Krishna, West and East Godavari Districts, and production is being or has already been shut-in in anticipation of the storm's passage.
Reliance Industries, the primary operator in the area with the largest gasfield in India in the KG-D6 Block, said it has suspended production at the MA Fields and is monitoring the progress of the cyclone to see if it will be a direct threat to its other installations. "We are monitoring the situation and if we find that the cyclone will directly hit our facilities, then our floating production, storage, and offloading facility (FPSO) may have to be taken to a safer location," said a company spokesman. "The oil from MA fields is produced through the FPSO, which, as a precaution, has been shutdown. As a result the production of gas that accompanies oil from MA fields, which otherwise goes through an undersea pipeline to onshore, has also been shut-in," said the spokesman.
Reliance has also suspended drilling operations at KG-D6 and the neighboring KG-D3 block, where it had two deepwater drilling rigs operating on the KG-D6 Block and another on the KG-D3 Block. The drilling rigs have been moved away from the path of the storm.
Other companies including Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) with operations in the immediate offshore of the Krishna Godavari Basin are also taking precautions, sending nonessential personnel to shore, suspending production, and moving some drilling rigs to safer waters.
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