OALP Round 5 fails to attract private players; ONGC & OIL emerge top bidders

• While ONGC was the only bidder for six blocks, OIL was the sole bidder in all the four blocks it bid for, the DGH said

• The latest bidding round announced by the DGH under OALP offered 11 blocks for exploration and production of oil and gas

New Delhi: The Round 5 bid under OALP (Open Acreage Licensing Policy) has received bids from only 12 entities for the 11 areas on offer and all the bids, barring one, have come from state-run OIL (Oil India Limited) and ONGC (Oil & Natural Gas Corporation). According to the DGH (Directorate General of Hydrocarbons), the 11 blocks received 12 bids — seven by ONGC and four by OIL. Invenire Petrodyne Ltd was the only private bidder.

While ONGC was the only bidder for six blocks, OIL was the sole bidder in all the four blocks it bid for, the DGH said.

OALP Bid Round 5 closed on June 30

The latest bidding round announced by the DGH under OALP offered 11 blocks for exploration and production of oil and gas. The bidding process for these blocks closed on June 30. The previous bid round, OALP IV, too, had seen just eight bids coming in for the seven blocks on offer. And ONGC had walked away with all the seven oil and gas blocks.

The backdrop

The government has so far awarded 94 blocks in four OALP bid rounds over the last two-and-a-half years. These 94 blocks cover an exploratory area of around 1,36,800 square kilometres over 16 Indian sedimentary basins. The Round 5 of OALP bid offered around 19,800 sq km of area for exploration to bidders.

The 11 blocks under OALP-V are spread across eight sedimentary basins and include eight on land blocks (six in Category-I basin and one each in Category II and III basins), two shallow-water blocks (one each in Category-I and II basins) and one ultra-deepwater block (Category-I basin). At the time of the launch of OALP-V, DGH had said that the round is expected to "generate immediate exploration work commitment of around $400-450 million."

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