New Delhi: The Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri launched the 10th round of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) on the sidelines of India Energy Week 2025 on Tuesday. This round is the largest bid round in terms of acreage offered in a single OALP bid round. The round-X puts 25 blocks on offer across 13 sedimentary basins, including 19 offshore blocks. The blocks are cumulatively spread over an area of 1.91 lakh sq km. This round is also the largest offshore block bid round with 19 offshore blocks on offer, covering an area of 1,75,115 sq km.
Out of the total 25 blocks on offer, 16 blocks with an area of 97,919.6 Sq Km (51 percent) fall in earlier ‘No-Go’ area. Out of 25 blocks, six are onland, six are in shallow water, one in deep water and 12 blocks are in ultra deep-water areas. There are nine category-I blocks, 11 Category-II blocks and five Category-III blocks.
For OALP Round-X, a new e-bidding portal is available for transparent and secure bidding with additional ease of doing business features.
OALP bid Round-X comes after ORD amendment
The latest round of OALP bids is the first to be launched after the introduction of the Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Amendment Bill, 2024, in Lok Sabha. The bill has already been passed by Rajya Sabha in December 2024 and now awaits clearance from Lok Sabha. Sources said that with the launch of the largest OALP bid round, the government is hoping to attract interest from foreign bidders this time. The amendment separates petroleum lease from mining lease and strives to offer leases on stable terms. It also introduces a simpler business regime and streamlines clearances.
The OALP Round-X was launched by Puri in the presence of British Secretary of State for energy and climate change, Edward Miliband, Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, and Doto Mashaka Biteko, the deputy Prime Minister of Tanzania. It comes over a year after OALP IX bidding opened in January 2024. The government has so far received limited interest from private players under the OALP regime, with PSUs bagging most of the blocks. With ORD amendment on the way, it remains to be seen if this round will attract interest from private and foreign players, in addition to state-owned upstream companies.
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