Oil Blocks

As many as 26 mainly offshore oil and gas blocks and 16 coal bed methane blocks have been notified for international bidding as India aims to quickly increase the area under exploration

India is offering 26 blocks or areas for finding and producing oil and gas in a mega offshore bid round, upstream regulator DGH said on Tuesday. Simultaneously, 16 areas for prospecting for coal-bed methane (CBM) are also being offered in a separate round. The "government announces the offer of 26 blocks covering an area of approximately 2.23 lakh square kilometers for exploration and development through international competitive bidding," the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said without giving timelines for bidding. Out of the 26 blocks, 15 areas are in ultra-deepwater, 8 in shallow sea and 3 blocks are onland. The bid rounds are being held under the 2016 policy, called the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), which was promulgated on March 30, 2016. Since then, seven bid rounds of the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) have been concluded and 134 exploration and production blocks awarded. These blocks cover 2,07,691 square km of area across 19 ...

India's flagship overseas firm ONGC Videsh Ltd has got the seventh extension to explore for oil and gas in a Vietnamese block in the contested waters of the South China Sea, officials said. OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has secured extension of the exploration phase upto June 15, 2023, they said. The company has not found any commercially recoverable oil and gas reserves in the block in the 16 years it has been exploring there but has continued presence there because of India's strategic interest in the South China Sea. Vietnam too wants the Indian firm to counter China's interventions in the contested waters. OVL had signed a production sharing contract (PSC) with Vietnam's national oil firm PetroVietnam for deepwater exploratory Block- 128 having an area of 7,058 square kilometres in Offshore PhuKhanh Basin, Vietnam in May 2006. An investment licence was issued to it on June 16, 2006, thereby giving effect to the PSC. The firm has .

The government has been hoping that opening up of more acreage for exploration will help boost India's oil and gas production

State-owned ONGC is discussing acquiring an interest of 20% to 40% in the field, the people said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private

Three years after its much-acclaimed maiden entry into Israeli water, an ONGC Videsh (OVL)-led Indian consortium has relinquished the oil block due to "very poor" hydrocarbon prospectivity.

Nippon Power, South Asia Consultancy, PFH (Poddar Family Holdings) Resources and Chennai-based Adbhoot Estates could be the first ones to start production from blocks awarded during DSF-1 auctions

Vedanta's oil and gas arm Cairn has got a further three-month extension of license for its prolific Rajasthan oil block pending settlement of a dispute over $520 million cost recovery

Entrepreneurs bid for discovered small fields, only to find gaps between promise and experience

The block in Rajasthan saw competition from ONGC and OIL but the five in Madhya Pradesh and one in West Bengal saw single bids from ONGC, DGH said

The government sees this as a milestone in the country's hydrocarbon sector, as investments so far were limited to only seven of the 26 sedimentary basins in the country

India had been looking to secure a contract for developing the gas field since 2009 but successive economic sanctions against the Islamic regime have scuttled plans

The govt has decided to replace the controversial profit model with a revenue-share model

India had received bids for 34 of 46 oil and gas fields that were auctioned in May

Latest round of auctions attracted about 42 firms, which placed 134 bids for 34 of total 46 contract areas on offer

Pharma, media tycoons among those in race for marginal oil blocks put up for auctions