NELP VII: 181 bids received

New Delhi: The Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry announced that it had received a total of 181 bids from 96 companies including Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Reliance Industries, Essar Oil, British Petroleum and BHP Billiton for 45 oil and gas exploration blocks under the seventh round of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP).

The Government could not find bidders for 12 of the 57 blocks that were on offer, putting a question mark on the success of the NELP VII that closed on Monday under an atmosphere of uncertainty over the tax breaks issue. The winners would be decided by August 31.

The 12 blocks that failed to receive any bids were the recycled blocks, Director General of Hydrocarbons V. K. Sibal told newsmen here.

He said all blocks received multiple bids and two small blocks received 17 bids.

The Government had twice postponed the NELP VII even as the Petroleum Ministry sought to convince the Finance Ministry for granting tax breaks for oil and gas production. This has been the highest number of blocks offered so far under NELP covering an area of 1.71 lakh square Km. With the above award, the exploration coverage of Indian sedimentary basin is likely to go up to 55 per cent.

A new category of blocks, namely, S-type was offered in the present round wherein previous oil and gas operations experience was not made an essential criterion.