Round V e-bidding for hydrocarbon blocks open till 18th March 2020 6th cycle of submitting Eol open till 31st March, 2020

The bidders for hydrocarbon blocks can submit bids for Round-V through an online e-bidding portal till 1200 hours of 18th March 2020. The 6th cycle of submitting Expressions of Interest (Eol) is currently open till 31st March, 2020 and would be followed by the 7th cycle (April, 2020 to July 31, 2020). This has been stated in a facilitation workshop on Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) for Bid Round-V of hydro carbon blocks, in Mumbai today (26th February 2020). The 11 blocks offered in the OALP Bid Round-V are located in Western Offshore (Saurashtra & Mumbai) & Eastern Offshore (Cauvery) and also spread across the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam over 8 sedimentary basins. In this fifth round, 11 hydrocarbon blocks covering approximately 19,800 sq. km have been offered for exploration. 

OALP - a significant part of Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas - provides uniform license for exploring and producing hydrocarbons, enabling contractors to explore conventional as well as unconventional oil and gas resources. Till now, four OALP bid rounds have been successfully concluded wherein 94 blocks with area of 1,36,790 sq. km have been awarded to leading Exploration & Production (E & P) companies.  

The workshop organized by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons under Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG), was attended by more than 150 participants from E & P community, financial experts and leading professionals from the industry. It focused on apprising the investors about e-bidding process and opportunities in Bid Round-V, which was launched by Government of India on 14th January 2020. Joint Secretary (Exploration), MoPNG, Shri Amar Nath; DG, DGH, Shri S.C.L Das; ADG (Exploration), Dr. C. Laxma Reddy, along with other officials of Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas addressed the workshop.

Details of blocks on offer (OALP Bid Round –V) are as below.

Notably, the MoPNG has undertaken various reforms in Indian E & P sector to reduce import dependency on oil and gas; by accelerating E & P activities and bringing ease of doing business in this sector, by implementing Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) which was a paradigm shift in E & P licensing regime. HELP is attractive to investors for its reduced royalty rates, exempted Oil Cess, marketing and pricing freedom, round-the-year bidding, freedom to investors for carving
out blocks of their interest, a single license to cover both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons, exploration permission during the entire contract period and an easy, transparent & swift bidding and awarding process. Revenue Sharing Contract, are a few among many significant features of HELP.