Govt to kick off new energy exploration round on July 1

The government will on July 1 commence the first bidding round for oil and gas through an open acreage licensing policy (OALP), allowing bidders to select where they want to drill.

“The process will be kicked off from July 1, when interested parties can start submitting their expressions of interest (EoIs) for a particular area. That window will be open for three to four months till November. Then we will evaluate the EoIs and will invite bids. By the end of January, we are planning to award the blocks,” said an official close to the development.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will launch the National Data Repository (NDR) and OALP on June 28.

India has 26 sedimentary basins over 3.14 million sq. km, and crude oil and natural gas are being produced in seven basins. In the new rounds, 2.7 million sq. km will be on offer, comprising 1.5 million sq. km of onshore and 1.2 million sq. km of offshore areas.

According to the new Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP), the government will not micromanage the daily affairs of operators. This will be a revenuesharing model, providing pricing and marketing freedom to operators. The recently concluded first round of auctions for discovered small fields was conducted under the HELP.

“In the NDR, sedimentary basins gridded into sectors and divided into zones with corresponding data are made available. The NDR is based on seismic and well data, and investors can identify areas with potential through this,” the official added.

The NDR will offer 160 terabytes of data on India’s 26 sedimentary basins.

“We are looking forward to participate in this round. It is advantageous that the investor will have a choice of area and the revenue sharing model will also attract investors,” said D K Sarraf, chairman and managing director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.