Nine out of the 21 oil and gas blocks have either been relinquished or surrendered by the consortium of Reliance Industries Ltd and UK energy major British Petroleum (BP) Plc, said a senior official close to the RIL-BP joint venture. BP had last year bought a 30% stake, under a $7.2 billion deal from the Mukesh Ambani-led RIL, in a total of 23 oil and gas blocks, including the gas discovery areas of KG-D6 and NEC-25.

Declining to comment on the relinquishment, BP India head, Sashi Mukundan said: “We want to focus on quickly increasing production and finding more oil and gas”.

He said output from the main Dhirubhai-1 and 3 gas fields in KG-D6 block would increase in 2015 after the joint venture puts up additional gas compression facilities and revives some of the 6 closed wells.

The RIL-BP JV is currently focused on reviving offshore KG-D6 fields and bringing the Mahanadi basin NEC-25 discoveries to production.