Govt likely to launch gas block auctions in Feb

New Delhi: After successfully completing the seventh oil and gas exploration licensing round here, the Government plans to launch the next round of auctions in February with a target of putting over 100 blocks on offer.

At the product-sharing contract (PSC) signing ceremony for blocks awarded to oil and gas companies/consortiums under the Seventh round of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), the Petroleum Minister, Mr Murli Deora, said that it would be the Government’s endeavour to launch NELP-VIII in the first quarter of 2009.

“We have started interacting with all the stakeholders for simplifying bid evaluation criteria and PSC for the forthcoming rounds of NELP and coal bed methane (CBM) policy,” he added.

The Minister said that along with NELP-VIII, the fourth round of auction of CBM blocks would also be launched. Till now 26 coal blocks for exploiting gas lying below coal seams have been awarded in the previous three CBM rounds.

Under NELP-VII of the 57 blocks put on offer, 44 exploration blocks have been awarded. “In the six NELP rounds held during the seven-year period from 2000 to 2007 a total of 162 contracts have been signed. These efforts have resulted in 68 discoveries of oil and gas in 19 blocks, establishing in-place reserves of 500 million tonne of oil and oil equivalent of gas,” the Minister said.

Under NELP, the committed investment on exploration is envisaged as $8.3 billion, out of which about $ 4.5 billion has already been incurred on exploration and $1.4 billion on development of discoveries. “The total committed investment for phase-I of exploration under NELP-VII is about $1.5 billion,” the Minister said.

Among the companies/consortium that signed the PSC under NELP-VII were ONGC, first timers BHP-Billiton-GVK Oil and Gas, and Reliance Industries-BP Exploration. Other winners include Deep Energy, GeoGlobal Resources (Barbados), HOEC, Interlink Petroleum Ltd, Omkar Natural Resources, Indian Oil Corporation, GAIL (India), Quest Petroleum, and GSPC.

ONGC and its partners have bagged the highest number of blocks, 19. Under the seventh round, 26 on-land blocks, 11 deepwater blocks, and seven shallow water blocks were awarded.