Comments
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) has bagged all the blocks on offer in the Open Acreage Bid Round IV. ONGC had bid for all the seven blocks on offer while Oil India (OIL) had bid for just one block.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark the signing of contracts for these awarded blocks, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan said, “In the last two years, with completion of four India OALP bidding rounds, 94 explorations blocks covering an area of around 1,37,000 sq km have been offered to leading exploration and production companies. Prior to 2014, around 90,000 sq km of acreage had been bid out.”
“In the next OALP round, bids for around 20,000 sq km of acreages have been received. We hope that the Directorate General of Hydrocarbon completes the bidding process before the current financial year ends,” Pradhan said.
There were five blocks from Madhya Pradesh and one each from Rajasthan and West Bengal on offer in the fourth round. The block in Rajasthan was the only one to get more than one bid in this round.
The blocks awarded in these rounds follow the fiscal regime defined by the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy. This includes reduced royalty rates, zero oil cess, a uniform licensing system, marketing and pricing freedom, a revenue sharing model and exploration rights on all the retained areas for the full contract life, according to the DGH.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.