New Delhi: With the Central government focussed to accelerate exploration and production (E&P) activities across the country, ministry of petroleum and natural gases (MoP&NG) recently launched open acreage licensing programme (OALP) bid round-VIII, offering 10 blocks, for International competitive bidding.
For ensuring ease to bidders, the bids can now be submitted through a dedicated online e-bidding portal till 12:00 hours, by July 5, 2023, said an official of the MoP&NG. Award of OALP round-VIII blocks will further add 34,364.53 sq. km. of acreage and take the cumulative exploration acreage under OALP to 242,055 sq. km.
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It is pertinent to mention here that the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) was promulgated on March 30, 2016. Since then seven rounds of OALP have been successfully concluded and 134 E&P blocks have been awarded comprising an area of 2,07,691sq.km. spread across 19 sedimentary basins.
Government of India has taken some far-reaching decisions on reducing ‘No-Go’ areas in the Indian off shore by 99%. In this context, and with a view to accelerate E&P activities, enhance the ease of doing business and promote fresh investments in the E&P sector, the Government has recently effected significant changes in the contractual framework and incentive structure.
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The MoP&NG has taken various initiatives to woo investment in the sector, which include allocation of larger acreage areas through enhancement in upper limits for self-carving of acreage, simplified modalities for carving out open acreage blocks with partial 1 ‘x 1’ unit, flexibility in drilling commitment and clarification on target depth and modifications in operatorship experience for deep/ultra-deep-water blocks.
Besides, the ministry has also improved bidding parameters evaluation criteria and other bidding terms and worked out flexible work programme and relaxed exploration timelines suited to play based exploration approach in category-II and III basins. “Modifications in effective date and introduction of ‘commencement date’ for exploration timelines have also been done. Also the modified provisions for deduction of taxes and reference rate of conversion for statutory and contractual payments are set to attract the investors,” said the officials.
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The ministry has also streamlined EoI and bidding processes, brought change in the net worth definition, basic data package cost and rationalized tender/application fee and bid/participation bond.
The blocks are located in Kambey, Assam Shelf, Mumbai offshore, Kutch, Kerala-Konkan, Bengal-Purnea, Surashtra, Kirshna Godavari and Mahanadi basins, spread in a total area of 34364 sq km.
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The updated contractual framework with the above mentioned changes to intensive E&P investments is available at DGH website(www.dghindia.gov.in) and E-Bidding Portal (https://ebidding.dghindia.gov.in/). The bidders are encouraged to study revised terms, and submit the bids for OALP round VIII positively by 1200 hours of 05.07.2023.
