OALP Bid Round-VIII, offering 10 blocks
Around US$600-$700 million would be generated from immediate exploration work commitment under the OALP Round VIII, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said on 8 July 2022.
The Ministry has launched the OALP Bid Round-VIII, offering 10 blocks, for International Competitive Bidding on 7 July 2022.
The bids can be submitted through a dedicated online e-bidding portal till 1200 hour 6 September 2022.
The blocks are spread across 9 Sedimentary Basins – two Onshore, four Shallow Water, two Deep Water and two Ultra-Deep Water.
Successful award of Round-VIII Blocks would add a further 36,316 sq km of exploration acreage and cumulative exploration acreage under OALP regime will be increased to 244,007 sq km.
The Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) was promulgated on 30 March 2016. Since then, seven rounds of Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) have already been concluded and 134 Exploration & Production blocks awarded comprising 207,691 sq km of area spread across 19 sedimentary basins.
HELP, which adopts the Revenue Sharing Contract model, is a giant step towards improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the Indian Exploration and Production (E&P) sector.
It comes with attractive and liberal terms like reduced royalty rates, no Oil cess, no revenue share bidding for blocks in Category-II and III Basins, marketing and pricing freedom, round the year bidding, freedom to investors for carving out blocks of their interest, a single license to cover both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources, exploration permission during the entire contract period, and an easy, transparent and swift bidding and awarding process.
The XIIIth Window for submission of Expression of Interest (EoI) is currently open till 31 July 2022.
Details of Blocks on Offer (OALP Bid Round-VIII)
CB-ONHP-2022/1 (area 188.52 sq km) CAMBAY (basin) Onland-Onshore
AS-ONHP-2022/1 (2057.63) ASSAM SHELF Onland-Onshore
MB-OSHP-2022/1 (6059.94) Mumbai Offshore Shallow Water
GK-OSHP-2022/1 (765.54) KUTCH Shallow Water
KK-OSHP-2022/1 (6717.56) KERALA KONKAN Shallow Water
BP-OSHP-2022/1 (5754.92) BENGAL-PURNEA Shallow Water
GS-DWHP-2022/1 (2742.7) SAURASHTRA Deep Water
KK-DWHP-2022/1 (1112.71) KERALA KONKAN Deep Water
KG-UDWHP-2022/1 (1199.64) KRISHNA-GODAVARI Ultra-Deep Water
MN-UDWHP-2022/1 (9717.34) MAHANADIn Ultra-Deep Water. fiinews.com
