India is prone to provide areas categorised as ‘no-go’ areas within the tenth spherical of bidding for exploring and producing oil and gasoline in early 2025, a prime oil ministry official mentioned on Thursday.
Bids for 28 oil and gasoline blocks supplied within the ninth Open Acreage Licensing Coverage (OALP) spherical closes on September 21 and the tenth spherical is in works, the official, talking on situation of anonymity, instructed reporters right here.
OALP-X spherical will occur after the Parliament approves within the ensuing winter session amendments to the Oilfields (Regulation and Growth) Act (ORDA) of 1948 to increase definition of mineral oils to incorporate any naturally occurring hydrocarbon, coal-bed methane and shale gasoline/oil. The modification additionally replaces mining lease with petroleum lease and decriminalises sure offences.
“We hope that the amendments shall be accredited within the winter session of Parliament (probably in November/December). The modifications are anticipated to deliver confidence for the potential bidders for OALP X exploration acreages being deliberate in early 2025,” he mentioned.
Areas prone to be supplied within the subsequent spherical will embrace as soon as which until now had been in so-called ‘no-go’ areas the place exploration and manufacturing of oil and gasoline had been prohibited due to strategic causes.
Following an elaborate train to restrict the ‘no-go’ areas to solely ones which can be critically essential for missions equivalent to missile testing within the Bay of Bengal, a big acreage has been launched for exploration functions. This shall be supplied within the OALP-X spherical, the official mentioned.
The ninth bidding spherical was introduced on January 3 with February 29 as the unique bid submission deadline. That deadline has been prolonged a number of instances, with the present one ending on September 21.
The official mentioned the bid opening, analysis and approval of the Cupboard is prone to take a few months and the signing of contracts for OALP-IX blocks is probably going solely in early 2025. By this time the amendments to the ORDA are prone to be handed and the liberalised phrases could also be prolonged to the OALP-IX blocks as nicely.
“Now we have said that we’ll try to think about all inputs of ORDA amendments in OALP-IX spherical,” he mentioned.
The OALP rounds are important for India to lift home crude oil and pure gasoline manufacturing. At the moment, India imports greater than 85 per cent of its crude oil wants and roughly half of its gasoline requirement.
Of the 28 blocks supplied in OALP-IX, 9 are onshore blocks, eight shallow-water blocks and 11 ultra-deepwater blocks throughout eight sedimentary basins, with an space of 136,596.45 sq. kilometers. The Directorate Normal of Hydrocarbons (DHG) “carved out” 5 of those blocks, whereas the remaining 23 blocks are based mostly on expressions of curiosity obtained from firms throughout April 2022-March 2023.
Within the earlier eight OALP rounds, 144 exploration and manufacturing blocks comprising a complete space of 242,055 sq km have been awarded. Within the final spherical, state-owned ONGC gained seven blocks whereas a private-sector consortium of Reliance Industries and BP, Oil India and private-sector Solar Petrochemicals obtained one block every.
The federal government launched the OALP in 2017 to draw oil and gasoline corporations to develop India’s upstream sector. The OALP ensures advertising and pricing freedom with a revenue-sharing mannequin, other than providing decreased royalty charges.
(Solely the headline and film of this report could have been reworked by the Enterprise Customary workers; the remainder of the content material is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First Revealed: Sep 19 2024 | 5:53 PM IST
