GEIS-新闻详情

Govt opens 10th round of bidding for oil & gas assets, largest yet

2025-02-11 00:00:00.0 商业标准报-经济和政策原网页

The government on Tuesday opened the tenth round of bidding for the exploration and production (E&P) of oil and gas assets, launching the Open Acreage Licence Policy (OALP X). Announced on the sidelines of the India Energy Week summit in New Delhi, the round is the largest and spans 13 sedimentary basins and offers 25 blocks, including 19 offshore across 1.91 lakh sq km.

This compares with 1.36 lakh sq km of area opened under the preceding OALP IX round. The government has offered acreages spanning a total of 3.78 lakh sq km under the nine previous rounds.

The latest round includes 12 blocks in the ultra-deepwater area, six in shallow waters, and one deepwater. OALP X was launched by Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri in the presence of British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Edward Miliband, Qatar's Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, and Doto Mashaka Biteko, Deputy Prime Minister of Tanzania.

Officials say India is keen to attract foreign bids this time, given the introduction of the Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Amendment Bill, 2024 in Parliament. The Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha in the last session of Parliament and Lok Sabha has to do so. It clarifies the granting and extension of petroleum leases separate from mining leases, allows for international arbitration, and creates a new dispute resolution mechanism for the E&P sector. More importantly, it introduces a simpler business regime and streamlines approval processes, which global majors like Chevron, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies had previously flagged as challenging.

The latest announcement comes more than a year after OALP IX bidding opened in January 2024. It comprised 28 blocks covering an area of approximately 1.36 lakh sq km. The results of the OALP IX round have not been announced: It did not have foreign participation.

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India’s hopes

A lot is riding on the latest round. Despite nine OALP rounds, India’s national oil production stood at 29.4 million tonnes in 2023-24, lower than the 31.95 million tonnes recorded in 1999-2000. Ageing oil fields like Bombay High and limited success in discovering large new reserves have stagnated crude output since 2011, with annual production hovering around 30-35 million metric tonnes. Both domestic and foreign industry stakeholders have highlighted persistent challenges, including limited reserves, ageing infrastructure, and high exploration costs.

India has an estimated sedimentary area of 3.36 million sq km, comprising 26 sedimentary basins. Of this, 1.63 million sq km is on land, 0.41 million sq km is in the shallow offshore area up to 400 metres from the coast, and 1.32 million sq km is in the deepwater area beyond 400 metres. An estimated 10 per cent of these sedimentary basins are under exploration.

Under OALP, India allows upstream companies to carve out areas for oil and gas exploration. Exploration companies can submit expressions of interest for any area throughout the year, which are accumulated thrice annually, after which the identified areas are put up for auction.

The Centre estimates 651.8 million metric tonnes of recoverable crude oil reserves and 1,138.6 billion cubic metres of recoverable natural gas reserves within India’s 3.36 million sq km sedimentary basin. Currently, an estimated 10 per cent of this area is under exploration, with plans to increase it to 16 per cent by the end of 2024. This target has now been extended to 2025.

The government is also spending up to Rs 7,500 crore to support geoscientific data generation and upgrade the National Data Repository to the cloud.