Oil India Limited has signed up for the remaining four blocks awarded under the fifth bid round of Open Acres Licensing Policy (OLAP).
New Delhi (Natural Energy News): The state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Tuesday signed contracts for the seven oil and gas blocks that had won the latest bid round, which saw private sector participation.
Related Article: Oil India detects natural gas in Assam
Oil India Limited signed up for the remaining four oil has gas blocks allotted under the fifth invitation session of the Open Acres Licensing Policy (OLAP).
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said with the latest bid round, the government has awarded 1.56 lakh sq km per acre for production and production of oil and gas in the last four years.
This compares to the 90,000 sq km area awarded over the last two decades in the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) and nine rounds of prior NELP awards.
However, they wanted the explorers to intensify the hunt for oil and gas to make the country self-sufficient in energy. "You have to speed up fast," he said.
Red-tape and the many permissions required for oil and gas exploration and production have in the past caused many slippages in committed timelines.
Related Article: Petronet of India has no agendas to invest in LNG producers
"Tell us if you need more help," Pradhan asked the investigator to suggest improvements to the regulatory environment. "Business may not work as usual."
The minister also wanted to remodel the data repository set up by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), the upstream nodal agency of his ministry, on the lines of the National Geoscience Data Repository (NGDR) of the Ministry of Mines.
He wanted a data repository, which holds the geological data of the Indian sedimentary valleys, to become an independent profit center.
NGDR is a semi-government enterprise for all non-coal and non-fuel reserves.
The administration had proposed 11 oil and gas blocks for investigation and generation of oil and gas in OLAP-V blocks.
Related Article: Oil Gas says further reforms to increase private participation in oil, gas fields
Total 12 proposals for blocks in which seven proposed by ONGC and four by Oil India Limited were accepted for around 11 blocks of bidding on 30 June. Investor Petroidine Limited was the sole private bidder for one block.
While ONGC was the sole bidder for six blocks, OIL was the only bidder in all four blocks.
ONGC achieved all six oil and gas blocks where it was the only bidder for this blocks auction
The previous bid round, OALP-IV, also saw just eight bids coming for the seven blocks on offer. ONGC had gone with all seven oil and gas blocks on offer.
Prior to OALP-V, the government had allotted 94 oil and gas blocks in four OALP invitation rounds since the year 2017. All these 94 blocks enclose an experimental area of approximately 1,36,790 square kilometres of 16 Indian sedimentary valleys.
Related Article: Approved treaty to improve oil, gas industry in Bahrain
He said that in the latest bid round, around 19,800 sq km area was offered for bidding.
At the period of the launch of the OALP-V, DGH announced that the session was predicted to "generate sudden analysis work responsibilities around USD 400-450 million".
Out of 94 blocks allotted in the first four sessions of the OALP, Vedanta has achieved a maximum of 51 blocks. Oil India Limited got 21 blocks and ONGC got 17 other blocks.
After OALP-V, ONGC's tally is 24 and OIL's 25.
Under OALP, companies are allowed to take out areas where they want to explore oil and gas. Corporations can place an expression of interest (EOI) for any division throughout the year, but such interests acquire three times a year. The sought out regions are then put on auction.
.JPG)
0 Comments