Govt launches bidding for 10 blocks of hydrocarbon under open acreage program
Jul 08, 2022
New Delhi [India], July 8 : The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has launched the 'Open Acreage Licensing Programme Bid Round-VIII', offering 10 blocks for international competitive bidding in order to accelerate the exploration and production of hydrocarbons.
Open acreage licensing program was launched to allow the investors to carve out blocks of their choice.
The bids can be submitted through a dedicated online e-bidding portal till 1200 hrs. September 6, 2022, a Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas statement said on Friday.
On successful awarding of Round-VIII blocks, it would add a further 36,316 square kilometer of exploration acreage, while cumulative exploration acreage under the program will be increased to 244,007 square kilometer.
The ten blocks are spread across 9 sedimentary basins and include two on-land blocks, four shallow-water blocks, two deep water blocks, and two ultra-deepwater blocks. Those basins are Cambay, Assam Shelf, Mumbai Offshore, Kutch, Kerala Konkan, Bengal-Purnea, Saurashtra, Krishna-Godavari, and Mahanadi.
It is expected that the latest bid would generate an immediate exploration work commitment of around $600-700 million, the statement said.
The Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy (HELP), which adopts the revenue sharing contract model, is a giant step towards improving the 'Ease of Doing Business' in the Indian Exploration and Production (E&P) sector.
The policy comes with attractive and liberal terms like reduced royalty rates, no revenue share bidding for blocks in Category-II and III Basins, 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, exploration permission during the entire contract period, and a transparent and swift bidding process.
