Oil India to participate in ninth OALP round, currently mapping data: Official

The Indian government launched the ninth OALP round for international competitive bidding on January 3.

Oil India Limited (OIL) will participate in the ninth open acreage licensing policy (OALP) round and is currently reviewing necessary data to bid for offered oil blocks, Manas Kumar Sharma, director of exploration and development, told Moneycontrol.

“We will be bidding. We are undergoing review and are also engaging international consultants to look into the data. We will definitely participate in the 9th OALP round,” said Sharma.

The government opened the ninth round of the policy (OALP-IX) for international competitive bidding on January 3, offering 28 blocks with an area of 136,596 sq. km.

The blocks are spread across eight sedimentary basins of which nine are onshore, eight are in shallow water and 11 are ultra-deepwater prospects. Bidding for the round has been extended and concludes on May 15.

This dovetails with the state-run OIL's plans to intensify its exploratory efforts to boost production as prices of crude oil remain elevated and volatile. Sharma also told Moneycontrol that OIL plans to go “beyond limits” in its exploration efforts this year as crude oil prices rise. The company plans to drill a record 78 wells, including exploratory and development wells, in FY25 to meet India’s rising oil demand, compared to 61 wells in the previous year—its highest so far.

Exploration push in Andamans

OIL intends to deploy rigs to the Andamans by September 2024, said Sharma. OIL has two shallow-water blocks, AN-OSHP-2018/1 and AN-OSHP-2018/2, in the Andamans, which the oil explorer had won in the third OALP round.

“Andamans is an exploratory project which means it will not directly be translated into production. Once the discovery is done, appraisal and field development would be done. We would be drilling 3+1 wells in Andamans and we are also coming up with new prospects,” said Sharma.

According to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), Andamans is a Category II basin, which implies that it has sub-commercial discovery in place. Category II basins are those that have contingent resources which are yet to be converted to recoverable reserves.

With the idea of increasing domestic production amid rising oil demand in India, the government has opened up acreages for exploration that were earlier “no-go” areas. The basins in the Andamans—which have an area of 225,918 sq. km with 18,074 sq km shallow-water area and 207,844 sq km deepwater area—are projected to be sitting on large reserves of hydrocarbons.

Both OIL and the other state-run explorer, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, are expediting exploration activities in the Andamans. ONGC, too, has two blocks in the Andaman Basin that it won in the sixth OALP round.