The Centre has extended the deadline for submission of bids for round two of the discovered small-field auctions. Under this round, the Centre will offer 25 oil and gas fields that have been relinquished by ONGC and Oil India.

A statement from the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons said, “The last date of bid submission for Discovered Small Field Round-II is extended. The revised date will be intimated later.”

According to the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, the fields hold resources worth ₹1 lakh crore.

This is the second time that the bid submission deadline has been extended for this round of auctions. The earlier deadline for closing bids was December 18. The DSF bid round-II was launched on August 9, 2018.

Under this round, 60 discoveries clubbed into around 26 new contract areas. According to an official statement, these discoveries have an established hydrocarbon resource base of over 190 million tonnes oil and oil equivalent gas.

The first DSF bid round was completed in 10 months and saw 134 bidders for the 34 blocks on offer. Under the first round, 30 contracts were awarded to 20 companies out of which 13 were new entrants in the exploration and production sector. First oil or gas is expected in 2019-20 from the blocks auctioned during the round.