ONGC was the sole bidder for six blocks, OIL was the lone bidder in all the four blocks it bid for, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons said. India's latest oil and gas block bid round attracted only 12 bids for the 11 areas on offer, with 10 of them getting single bids from state-owned ONGC and Oil India Ltd, upstream regulator DGH said.
The government had offered 11 blocks for exploration and production of oil and gas in the fifth bid round under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OLAP), bids for which closed on June 30. According to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), the 11 blocks on offer got a total of 12 bids — seven bids by Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and four by Oil India Ltd (OIL). Invenire Petrodyne Ltd was the only private bidder. While ONGC was the sole bidder for six blocks, OIL was the lone bidder in all the four blocks it bid for, DGH said.
The last bid round, OALP-IV, too had seen just eight bids coming in for seven blocks on offer. ONGC had walked away with all the seven oil and gas blocks on offer. OALP-V, which opened in January, was to initially close on March 18, but the bid deadline was thrice extended — first to April 15, then to June 10, and finally to June 30, in view of the COVID-19 lockdown in the country. So far, the government has awarded 94 blocks in four OALP bid rounds in the last two-and-a-half years. These 94 blocks cover an exploratory area of about 1,36,800 square kilometres over 16 Indian sedimentary basins.
