The Hindu Business Line : Oil blocks: DGH forming teams to evaluate bids

The Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) is all set to kick start the evaluation process of the highest ever 165 bids received for the 52 blocks under the sixth round of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), bids for which closed last Friday. This is even as speculations are high on state-owned oil companies having a cakewalk.

Speaking to Business Line, senior Petroleum Ministry officials said the DGH is in the process of forming teams, which would be evaluating the bids. In another 20 days, it would be clear who are the winners, sources added. However, market is already abuzz with talk that ONGC is likely to bag a major chunk, followed closely by Oil India Ltd.

Asked whether the reports coming in would be right, sources said it would be easy to calculate how much would be allocated out of the 98 marks, as the system was very transparent. As regards the concern expressed by some of the players that there was a possibility of misuse of profit petroleum under the production sharing contract (PSC) criteria, as some of the companies have pledged as much as 90 per cent under profit petroleum, sources said, "we have not seen the bids as yet hence it would be difficult to comment on specific bid criterias." However, they maintained that the Government has adopted a very transparent system.

The Government is expecting to award the blocks by November 15 and the contracts are to be signed by January 2007. The Government has so far signed 110 production-sharing contracts with foreign and domestic companies, following an open global bidding system.

A total of 66 companies including 35 foreign and 31 Indian companies submitted bids either on their own or as consortia. While, ONGC has submitted 45 bids adopting a consortium approach, GAIL (India) has submitted 28. Private sector major Reliance Industries Ltd has submitted 21 bids (20 solo and one with Oil India).

While 39 blocks attracted multiple bids, 13 received single bid. Besides, having received bids for 21 deepwater blocks, bids have also been received for all the 12 frontier on-land blocks.

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