The central government has launched the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) Bid Round-VII for International Competitive Bidding. The interested individuals must note that bids can be submitted through a dedicated online e-bidding portal till 12 AM on February 15, 2022.

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Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas tweeted from his official Twitter handle, "In a significant step towards boosting India’s domestic oil & gas production, the biggest oil & gas tender in the history of the industry launched for 75 oil & gas blocks launched by @DghIndia. Covers DSFs, across 32 contract areas both onshore & offshore."

 

As per the release from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, award of the above-mentioned blocks is likely to be completed by the end of March 2022. The successful award of Round-VII Blocks would add further 15,766 sq. km of exploration acreage and cumulative acreage under OALP will be increased to 207,692 sq. km.

It has to be noted that the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) was approved in March 2016. In continuation to its determination for reduction in import dependency of oil and gas and accelerating E&P activities, the government notified the further policy reforms in Exploration and Licensing Policy in February, 2019. The focus was shifted from 'revenue' to 'production' maximization’. There is continued focus on greater transparency and streamlined procedures.

Since the launch of HELP on March 30, 2016, five rounds of OALP have been concluded for 105 E&P blocks; award of 21 blocks under sixth round of OALP is under progress. These 126 blocks comprise about 191,926 sq.km. of area spread across 18 sedimentary basins.

HELP which adopts the Revenue Sharing Contract model, is a significant step towards improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the Indian Exploration and Production (E&P) sector. It comes with attractive and liberal terms like 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, exploration permission during the entire contract period, and an easy, transparent and swift bidding and awarding process.

One can note that  fact that the 9th window for submission of Expressions of Interest (EoIs) is currently open till March 31, 2022.