The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas launched the sixth round of bids under the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP). A total of 21 blocks, with an area of approximately 35,346 sq km are on offer to investors.
The bidders would be able to submit their bids on an online e-bidding portal starting 6 August 2021 and the deadline for bid submission is 6 October 2021. The award of these blocks to winning bidders is expected by the end of November 2021.
In earlier rounds, the Ministry had awarded 105 blocks spanning an area of around 1,56,580 sq km, which attracted total committed investment of about USD 2.4 billion.
It is expected that this Bid Round VI will generate immediate exploration work commitment of around USD 300-400 million.
The 21 blocks under OALP Round VI are spread across 11 Sedimentary Basins and include 15 Onland blocks, four Shallow Water blocks and two Ultra Deep Water blocks. Category wise, there are 12 blocks in Category-I basins, four in Category II basins and five in category-III basins.
An area of 1,56,580 sq km has already been awarded under past bid rounds OALP Bid Rounds (I to V). This Bid Round VI is expected to add further 35,346 sq km, taking the total area for exploration to 1,91,926 sq. km under the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) regime.
HELP regime adopts the Revenue Sharing Contract model, a deviation from the earlier Production Sharing Contract model.
It comes with reduced royalty rates, no 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 hydrocarbon resources.
