India will line up 10 oil and gas blocks under the sixth round of Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) for domestic and international hydrocarbon players, SCL Das, Director General, Directorate General of Hydrocarbons has said.
State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) had won seven out of 11 geographical areas on offer under the fifth bidding round held last year under the OALP. Oil India (OIL) won the remaining four blocks.
OALP Round V is expected to generate an immediate exploration work commitment of around $400-450 million. On the other hand, the first four rounds are expected to generate an investment of approximately $2.35 billion over the next three to four years in exploratory work alone.
Addressing international energy summit CERA Week 2021, he said the country wants more international investors to participate in the OALP and Discovered Small Fields (DSF) rounds.
Amar Nath, joint secretary at the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas added that the next round of small field auctions is expected to happen within the next two months.
Das indicated that for foreign players India will open up opportunities as demand is constantly on a rise in the country. According to data available with the DGH, demand for crude oil is likely to double from 5 million barrels per day now to 10 billion barrels by 2050. Similarly, the demand for natural gas may also increase to 241 billion cubic meter (bcm) by 2050 from around 58 bcm now.
“To move towards this, we have lined up several policy reforms including revenue sharing model and unified licensing policy. Moreover, we have also introduced several fiscal incentive schemes,” he said.
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