Saturday, March 26 2005 11:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Exxon Mobil Corp, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, is keen on acquiring a stake in Reliance Industries' D6 Block in Krishna Godavari basin in Bay of Bengal where 14 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves have been discovered till date.

ExxonMobil, the world's largest and most profitable private producer of oil and gas with operations spanning 40 countries, has held preliminary talks with senior Reliance officials on taking 50 per cent stake and operatorship of KG-DWN-98/3 (KG-D6) block, industry sources said.

"RIL has received and continues to receive expressions of interest from many international companies for a possible participation in its Indian Blocks. However, we cannot comment on any specific proposal at this juncture," a Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) spokesperson said from Mumbai.

Sources said RIL is on the lookout for deep-sea gas exploitation technology and considering bringing in an experienced global upstream major for the purpose.

Reliance is racing against time to begin natural gas production from the field by 2007-08 fiscal, the time it has given for beginning supplies to its first and most important customer National Thermal Power Corp.

Reliance, which has secured Directorate General of Hydrocarbon's approval for a $ 2.39-billion development plan for two gas fields in KG-D6 block, on March 9 floated an international tender for risk, reliability and availability studies for developing of KG-DWN-98/3 block.