New Delhi: India's second largest exploration and production company, Oil India Limited (OIL), has bagged the maximum number of oil blocks under the round II and III of the Open Acreage License Policy (OALP) — a total of 12 blocks. Vedanta Oil and Gas settled on the second spot by bagging 10 blocks out of 32, followed by ONGC with eight blocks and Indian Oil with one block.
One block also went to global major British Petroleum and its partner Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), marking the re-entry of RIL into domestic oil exploration and production sector after a gap of 11 years. The block bagged by the RIL-BP combine is said to be on the east coast. The last time RIL won a block was in 2008 during the seventh round of auction under the New Exploration Licensing Policy.
Even though Vedanta came in second this time, it has bagged the most number of oil blocks under the three rounds of the OALP auctions. During OALP-I, Vedanta was the most aggressive bidder and had walked away with 41 out of the 55 blocks on offer. Combining the blocks that Vedanta bagged this time, the total comes to 51.
The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) had conducted the second and the third rounds of bidding under OALP simultaneously as it had extended the bid submission deadlines several times.
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