Reliance halts India block output to help add wells

NEW DELHI, March 30 (Reuters) - India's Reliance Industries Ltd (RELI.BO) has temporarily stopped crude oil production from its east coast block from March 22 to help start more wells and raise output, a company spokesman said on Monday.

He did not give details, but a company source said Reliance aimed to add three production wells and an injection well during the month-long shutdown to raise the output to 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Before the shutdown, Reliance was producing about 18,000 bpd from three wells, he said.

Reliance began oil production from MA-1 field in the Krishna Godavari block in mid-September.

It was producing about 10,000 bpd of oil from two wells before it had shut its floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) system for nearly three months from December.

Reliance (RELI.BO) owns 90 percent of the D-6 block, while Canada's Niko Resources NKO.T has the rest. (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)