OALP round 8: ONGC wins 7 blocks, RIL-BP and OIL bag one each 

State-run firms Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India (OIL) have together secured eight of the 10 oil and gas blocks offered under the eighth round of the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP).

The consortium of Reliance Industries (RIL) and BP as well as Sun Petrochemicals secured a block each. While ONGC secured seven blocks, OIL secured one.

The contracts for the 10 blocks were signed on Wednesday in the presence of Oil Minister HS Puri. Three coal bed methane (CBM) blocks were also awarded under the Special CBM Bid Round-SCBM 2022.

The government has in the recent past made available offshore acreage exceeding 1 million sq km, which were earlier ‘no-go’ areas, for exploration and production (E&P) operations.

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At present only 10 per cent of Indian sedimentary basin area is under active exploration. It is estimated that after the award of blocks under the forthcoming OALP-IX and X bid rounds, about 5.6 lakh sq km  (16 per cent) will come under exploration by the end of 2024.

Under the OALP VIII bid round, the 10 blocks offered totalled 34,364 sq km, spread across nine sedimentary basins, and included two on-land blocks (both in category-I basin), four shallow-water blocks (one in category-I and three in category II/III basins), two deepwater blocks (both in category II/III basins), and two ultra deepwater blocks (one each in category-I and category-II basins).

In all, 13 bids were received for the 10 blocks, which were awarded to four companies. The estimated investment in the awarded blocks for the committed exploration programme is about $233 million.

Under the Special CBM Round-2022, 16 CBM blocks were offered for bidding across seven states, covering 5,817 sq km. In all, six bids were received for three blocks across 717 sq km, which were awarded to two companies. The estimated investment in the awarded blocks is $7.4 million. 

The first seven OALP bid rounds led to an award of 134 blocks, covering 2,07,691 sq km, to leading E&P companies. Now, with the award of 10 more blocks under round-VIII, 144 exploratory blocks have been awarded under the HELP regime, covering 2,42,055 sq km.

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