Bidding for 15 blocks offered in the first coal-bed methane (CBM) round in more than a decade will start on February 15 and end on March 15, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said.
Bids under the Special CBM Bid Round-2021, which was launched in September last year, were originally due on 20 February, 2022, but the deadline was postponed. "Bid submission for Special CBM Bid Round-2021 will start on 15th February, 2022 and end on 15th March, 2022," DGH said in a notice.
The government has offered 15 blocks in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh for extracting gas from coal seams (CBM). This is the first CBM bid round in more than a decade. The last round was held in 2010.
CBM is gas or methane found below coal seams in coal fields. It is similar to natural gas and can be used as fuel to fire power plants, run fertilizer units, or be used as CNG in automobiles. The maximum number of five coal-bed methane (CBM) blocks have been offered in Madhya Pradesh, and two blocks each in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha. Three blocks are on offer in Chhattisgarh and one in West Bengal.
The government has awarded 29 CBM blocks in the previous four rounds of bidding. "Companies are invited to bid for exploration, development and monetization of 15 CBM blocks likely to contain both conventional and/or unconventional hydrocarbon resources, distributed in the sedimentary basins of India," DGH had said in the notice inviting offers in September last year.
All the 15 blocks are in Category-III basins that hold prospective resources to be explored and discovered. India's sedimentary basins are divided into three categories -- Category-I are basins with reserves being produced and exploited, and Category-II are ones with contingent resources to be developed and monetized.
Under the current CBM round, bidders offering to do maximum exploration work will be awarded the block, DGH had said. The bid round is part of the government's attempt to raise domestic oil and gas production to cut reliance on imports. India imports roughly 85 per cent of its oil needs and about half of the gas requirement.
Prior to the CBM launch, the government offered 21 conventional oil and gas blocks for bidding in the sixth round under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP). Last date for bidding for these blocks is 15 February, 2022. In parallel, the government has offered 32 small and marginal discovered fields.
