The Centre will soon call for bids for the second and third round of oil and gas auctions.
Speaking at the National Oil & Gas Summit-2018 organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Joint Secretary (Exploration), Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Amar Nath, said, “Contracts of 55 blocks have been signed in the first round of auctions. Bidding for the second and third rounds will be announced shortly. There will be almost 30 areas on offer.”
In October, the Government had signed the contracts of the blocks awarded under the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) Bid Round-I. Contracts were signed for all 55 blocks with six companies. The bid round-I of OALP was launched in January under the liberalised Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP).
Amar Nath said that the Centre has been taking steps to make the gas pricing regime more investor-friendly. “The issues relating to gas pricing to a large extent have been streamlined, but this is work in progress.”
Domestic gas producers have been apprehensive about the current gas pricing methodology imposed by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation had said that the company will barely break even at the new natural gas price that came into effect from October 1. This was after the government announced a 10 per cent higher price for natural gas at $ 3.36 a million British thermal unit (mBtu) for the six month period beginning October 1.
This price was lower than the average cost of gas production by ONGC during 2017-18 that stood at $3.59 per mBtu.
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