New Delhi, Jan 17 (PTI) India will tomorrow put onauction 55 exploration blocks in the first bid round in eightyears that will offer a record area for prospecting of oil andgas, the head of country's upstream regulator said.
This will be the first auction under the new HydrocarbonExploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) that allows companiesto carve out blocks of their choice with a view to bringingabout 2.8 million square kilometres of unexplored area in thecountry under exploration.
Atanu Chakraborty, Director General of the DirectorateGeneral of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said the HELP brought in openacreage licensing policy that allowed companies to put in anexpression of interest (EoI) for prospecting of oil and gas inany area that is presently not under any production orexploration licence.
The blocks or areas that receive EoIs are put up forauction with the originator or the firm that originallyselected the area getting a 5-mark advantage.
"The EoI opened in July last year and we got EoIs for 57blocks by the end of the deadline on November 15. Afterscrutiny and eliminating areas in no-go zone and overlapping,55 blocks remain which are being put up for auction beginningtomorrow," he told PTI here.
The 55 blocks have a total area of 59,282 sq km.
"This is significant when we compare it to about 1,02,000sq km being under exploration currently. The round openingtomorrow would lead to jump in area under exploration by 50per cent," he said.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and CairnIndia - a unit of Vedanta Ltd, had put in 41 out of 57 bidsreceived in November last year. Private player Hindustan OilExploration Co (HOEC) bid for one area in a round.
He said the opening up of 2.8 million sq km ofsedimentary basins for oil and gas exploration will help raisedomestic production and cut excessive dependence on imports.
Bids are expected by the first week of April and blockswould be awarded by June end.
The new policy replaced the old system of governmentcarving out areas and bidding them out. It guaranteesmarketing and pricing freedom and moves away from productionsharing model of previous rounds to a revenue sharing modelwhere companies offering maximum share of oil and gas togovernment are awarded the block.
In the new policy, "regulatory oversight burden is lessand handholding is more," he said.
Till now, the government has been selecting anddemarcating areas it feels can be offered for bidding in anexploration licensing round.
So far 256 blocks had been offered for exploration andproduction since 2000. The last bid round happened in 2010. Ofthese, 254 blocks were awarded. But as many as 156 havealready been relinquished due to poor prospectivity. PTI ANZMR.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.