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The Discovered Small Field Bid Round-II, now underway and expected to be completed by January-February 2019, is likely to see investment of about $1,200 million, according to the Director-General of Hydrocarbons.
“While the first Discovered Small Field Round-I fetched about $600 million, this round to likely to see an investment of about $1,200 million ($1.2 billion),” V.P. Joy, Director-General of Hydrocarbons, said.
Speaking on the sidelines of an investors’ meet hosted here on DSF Bid Round-II, the DGH said: “This is an opportunity to invest in fields, which have proven to have good resources. While the bidding time closes on December 18, we expect the process to conclude by early next year.”
The Centre launched the Bid Round-II under the Discovered Small Field Policy for International Competitive Bidding on August 9, 2018. Under this bid round, 25 contracts areas covering 59 discovered oil and gas fields spread over 3,042 sq km, with a prospective resource base of over 190 MMTOE, was announced for bidding.
The DGH said the DSF provides a unique opportunity for new players to enter the sector with minimal risk, as the fields have proven resources.
He said the DSF policy is aligned to the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), which adopts the revenue-sharing model. This is seen as a step towards improving the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) in the country's oil and gas exploration and production sector.
Interacting with the investor community, officials and experts on behalf of the DGF explained the distinctive futures of this round of bidding and how this makes it convenient for them to take advantage of the potential for oil and gas.
The investors were briefed on the attractive fiscal terms such as reduced royalty rates and no cess, single licence for all hydrocarbons, pricing and marketing freedom, exploration throughout the contract period, no historical cost and provision for sharing of common facilities.
The bidders have been given access to data available in the National Data Repository. While the access to data is on payment of relevant costs, the portal for bidding opened on August 9 and would continue till December 18, 2018. Thereafter bids would be taken up for consideration.
The DGH plans to hold similar investor meetings at Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and a few international locations.
While consultant KPMG provided an insight into the taxation structure in the context of the GST regime coming in, P Elango, MD, Hindustan Oil Exploration Company, shared his experiences from round-I and their efforts to come out with oil by 2020-21.
The DGH had carried out a reassessment study for all the 26 basins and this was reviewed by international subject experts and Indian experts.
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