8-Jul-2022: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas launches Open Acreage Licensing Programme Bid Round-VIII

The Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) was promulgated on 30 March 2016. Since then seven rounds of Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) have already been concluded and 134Exploration &Production blocks awarded comprising 2,07,691 sq.km. of area spread across 19sedimentary basins.

In continuation of its zeal to accelerate of E&P activities, the Government has now launched the OALP Bid Round-VIII, offering 10 blocks, for International Competitive Bidding on July 7, 2022. The bids can be submitted through a dedicated online e-bidding portal till 1200 hrs. September 6, 2022.Successful award of Round-VIII Blocks would add a further 36,316 sq. km of Exploration Acreage and cumulative exploration acreage under OALP regime will be increased to 2,44,007 sq. km.

The Ten blocks under present bid round are spread across 9 Sedimentary Basins and include two On land blocks, four shallow Water blocks, two Deep Water Blocks and two Ultra-Deep Water blocks. It is expected that OALP Round VIII would generate immediate exploration work commitment of around USD 600-700million.

The Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy (HELP), which adopts the Revenue Sharing Contract model, is a giant step towards improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the Indian Exploration and Production (E&P) sector. It comes with attractive and liberal terms like reduced royalty rates, no Oil cess, no revenue share bidding for blocks in Category-II and III Basins, marketing and pricing freedom, round the year bidding, freedom to investors for carving out blocks of their interest, a single license to cover both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources, exploration permission during the entire contract period, and an easy, transparent and swift bidding and awarding process.

The XIIIth Window for submission of Expression of Interest (EoI) is currently open till July 31, 2022.

6-Aug-2021: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas launches Open Acreage Licensing Programme Bid Round-VI

The advent of the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) promulgated in March 2016, brought about paradigm changes in the way exploratory blocks are auctioned in India. It led to transition from production sharing regime to revenue sharing regime. The Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) offered the potential investors freedom to carve out blocks of their choice through submission of Expression of Interest (EoI). The EoI window is open round the year and the investors need to wait for periodic launch of bid rounds. After successful completion of 3 bidding rounds, the Government notified further policy reforms within ambit of HELP in February 2019.The focus was shifted from 'revenue' to 'production' maximization. There was also focus on greater transparency and stream-lined procedures. Bid Rounds IV onwards are being carried out under the further reformed policy and revised model bid documents.

The Government launched OALP Bid Round-V on January 14, 2020 for 11 E&P Blocks for an area of19,789 sq. km and completed on November 17, 2020, with the award of all the Blocks to winning bidders. In spite of COVID-19 pandemic, the bidding was successfully completed and blocks awarded.

In the E&P Investor Meet held on 30th July 2021 at New Delhi, the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas had made the announcement that the OALP Bid Round VI is being launched soon and welcomed the domestic and international communities to participate in the robust Indian energy growth story.

Accordingly, in continuation of its focus on aggressive acceleration of E&P activities, the Government has now launched the OALP Bid Round-VI for International Competitive Bidding with effect fromAugust6, 2021.A total of 21 blocks, with an area of approximately 35,346 sq. km. are on offer to the investors. The bidders would be able to submit their bids through an online e-bidding portal starting August6, 2021 and the deadline for bid submission is October 6, 2021 at 1200 hrs. Considering the COVID-19pandemic situation, bidders are allowed to submit requisite bid documents electronically. Award of these blocks to winning bidders is expected by the end of November2021.

The 21blocks under OALP Round-VI are spread across 11Sedimentary Basins and include fifteen Onland blocks, four Shallow Water blocks and two Ultra Deep Water block. Category wise, there are 12 blocks in Category-I basins, 4 in Category II basins and 5 in category-III basins.

It is expected that this Bid Round VI would generate immediate exploration work commitment of around USD 300-400 million. An area of 156,580 sq. km. has already been awarded under past bid rounds OALP Bid Rounds(I to V). This Bid Round-VI is expected to add further 35,346sq. km, taking the total area for exploration to 191,926 sq. km. under the HELP regime.

About HELP: The Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy (HELP), which adopts the Revenue Sharing Contract model, is a giant step towards improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the Indian Exploration and Production (E&P) sector. It comes with attractive and liberal terms like reduced royalty rates, no Oil Cess, marketing and pricing freedom, round the year bidding, freedom to investors for carving out blocks of their interest, a single license to cover both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources, exploration permission during the entire contract period, and an easy, transparent and swift bidding and awarding process. Bid Round-IV onwards bidding rounds are being carried out under the further liberalized policy terms, which focused on production maximization with higher weightage to Committed Work Programme in Category I basin and no revenue share bids required for less explored Category II & III basins.

The 10thcycle of submitting Expressions of Interest (EoIs) has recently closed on July 31, 2021,with active investor participation and the 11th cycle is currently open till November30, 2021 for EOI submissions.

4-Aug-2021: Total 105 Exploration blocks awarded under Open Acreage Licensing Policy

The Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri Rameswar Teli in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today informed that total 105 Exploration blocks admeasuring an area of 156,580 Square Kilometer have been awarded under Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) in 5 Bid Rounds. Out of 105 Blocks, 89 Blocks are presently active for carrying out exploration activities.

Production of Crude Oil from NELP blocks started in 2004-2005. Cumulative production of Crude Oil from 2004-05 to 2020-21 is 4.9 million metric tonne (MMT). Commercial production of crude oil has not commenced from OALP blocks so far.

The Government notified the policy reforms vide notification dated 28th February, 2019, in exploration and licensing policy for enhancing domestic exploration and production. The reforms provide that in respect of the large and marginal nomination fields, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) and Oil India Limited (OIL) can choose field specific production enhancement models including farm out and Joint Ventures/ Technical Service Model.

Monetisation of identified pipelines of GAIL through InVIT mechanism for providing new sources of funds for infrastructure development is envisaged.

26-Aug-2019: Open Acreage Licensing Programme Bid Round-IV to be launched tomorrow

The Government has implemented plethora of reforms in the past five years in the E&P sector. The Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) replacing the erstwhile New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) was approved in March 2016 and the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) along with the National Data Repository (NDR) were launched in June 2017 as the key drivers to accelerate the Exploration and Production (E&P) activities in India. Government under three (3) OALP Rounds have already awarded Eighty-Seven (87) Blocks covering an area of 1,18,280 Sq. Km with leading E&P companies.

In continuation to its determination for reduction in import dependency of oil and gas and accelerating E&P activities, the Government notified further policy reforms in upstream sector on 28th February, 2019 to increase exploration activities, attract domestic and foreign investment in unexplored/unallocated areas of sedimentary basins and promote ease of doing business by streamlining and expediting the approval processes.

The Government has now launched the Bid Round-IV for International Competitive Bidding from 27th August, 2019 which will be carried out under the revised policy framework. In this bid round, 7 blocks, with an area of approximately 18,500 sq. km., are being offered for bidding to the investor community. All seven (7) blocks are based on Expressions of Interest submitted by the bidders.

Salient features of Policy Reforms cover Category Specific Bid evaluation criteria with more weightage to exploratory work programme, Category-II and III type blocks will be bided based on exploratory work programme only, shorter exploration period, concessional royalty rates to expedite oil and gas production and introduction of alternate dispute resolution mechanism.

The exploration acreage of India has been enhanced from 90,000 square kilometers in 2017 to 2,10,000 sq. km after successful completion of three OALP rounds under HELP and is expected to rise with upcoming bidding rounds. To further increase exploration acreage of India, Government has increased EoI cycles from two (2) to three (3) in a year with the revised dates of April 1 to July 31, August 1 to November 30 and December 1 to March 31.

With the release of Notice Inviting Offer (NIO), bidders can study the data available in National Data Repository (NDR) and select blocks for the bidding. The bidders would be able to submit their bids through an online e-bidding portal starting 27th August 2019 and the bidding round would continue till 1200 hrs. 31st October 2019.The blocks are spread across 3 sedimentary basins; 7 Inland blocks are on offer under OALP-IV which includes 6 blocks in Category-II and III Basins and 1 block in Category-I Basin. It is expected that OALP Round IV would generate immediate exploration work commitment of around USD 200-250 million.

The 5th cycle of submitting Expressions of Interest (EoIs) is currently going on till November 30, 2019 and would be followed by the 6th cycle from December 1, 2019 till March 31, 2020.

16-Jul-2019: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas signs contracts for 32 blocks awarded under Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) Bid Rounds – II & III

Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas signed contracts for 32 blocks awarded under Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) Bid Rounds – II & III. The Government had launched OALP Bid Rounds-II and III on 07th January, 2019 and 10th February, 2019 respectively. While Bid Round–II offered 14 Blocks (covering total area of approx. 30,000 sq. km.), the Bid Round-III offered 23 blocks including 5 CBM blocks (covering total area of approx. 32,000 sp.km.) under International Competitive Bidding (ICB) process. The bidding for both these rounds closed on 15th May, 2019. Subsequent to evaluation, a total of 32 blocks were approved for award to 6 companies, for which the Revenue Sharing Contracts have been signed, in the presence of the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel Shri Dharmendra Pradhan. The total area awarded today in the 32 blocks is 58,998 sq.km. (On land- 31,551 sq.km; Offshore- 27,447 sq.km.).

Increasing production of crude oil and gas is the priority of the government. He said that the country already has a network of refineries and a robust marketing setup, and E&P sector is expected to come up in a big way. Today’s award of OALP contracts is a step in this direction. India is going to become a $5 trillion economy and energy security, availability and accessibility are essential for this. India is going to surpass China in energy consumption in a few years. The last five years have been a journey of continuous policy reforms and bold decisions, as the Country moved from production sharing to revenue sharing and now reached Maximum Work commitment programme in the E&P sector- all these are intended to increase production.

The first OALP Bid Round was launched by the Government in January 2018, and had received overwhelming success with 110 bids for 55 blocks covering 59,282 sq. km. area. All the 55 blocks were awarded in October, 2018 and the Operators of these blocks have since initiated petroleum exploration activities or are in final stages of obtaining Petroleum Exploration Licenses (PELs). The first oil/gas from these blocks is expected before year 2023.

The Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy (HELP), which has adopted the Revenue Sharing contract model, is a giant step towards improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the Indian Exploration and Production (E&P) sector. It comes with attractive and liberal terms like reduced royalty rates, no oil cess, marketing and pricing freedom, round the year bidding, freedom to investors for carving out blocks of their interest, a single license to cover both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources, exploration permission during the entire contract period, and an easy, transparent and swift bidding and awarding process.

With the successful roll out of the HELP/OALP regime, based on the world-class National Data Repository (NDR), the Government has achieved a massive enhancement of exploration acreage in India. The acreage which stood at approximately 90,000 sq. km. in 2017 has now been enhanced to 2,10,000 sq. km. with today’s award, after 3 rounds of OALP. The country’s exploration acreage is expected to reach 300,000 sq. km. by the end of the year 2019 with further two rounds of bidding. The 4th cycle of submitting Expressions of Interest (EoIs) closed on May 15, 2019 and currently the 5th cycle of EoI is open till November 15, 2019.

10-Feb-2019: Bid round –III under Open Acreages Licensing Policy (OALP) launched

Union Petroleum and Natural Gas & Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan launched the bid round–III under Open Acreages Licensing Policy (OALP) at Greater Noida, the venue of PETROTECH-2019. Under this Bid round, 23 blocks, covering over 31,000 sq km od area will be available for exploration. Following the contract signing of 55 Blocks under OALP Bid Round-I, the Government launched OALP Bid Round-II on 07th January 2019 offering 14 Blocks under Petroleum Operation Contract for International Competitive Bidding. With the launch of the third bidding round, more than 1,20,000sq km of area has now been made  available for exploration in last one year. The OALP adopts all features of HELP - reduced royalty rates, no Oil Cess, uniform licensing system, marketing and pricing freedom, Revenue Sharing Model, Exploration rights on all retained area for full contract life etc.

The Government recently awarded 55 blocks spread across 10 sedimentary basins under maiden Bid Round after a gap of 6 years and 30 contract areas under the Discovered Small Field Policy Bid Round-I. The 2nd Bid Rounds for both Discovered Small Field Policy and Open Acreages Licensing Policy are now underway and have also seen encouraging response from investors. The overwhelming participation from investors is a testimony to their faith and confidence in India’s upstream sector potential. He invited the investors to participate in the bidding round and be a part of the Indian growth story.

7-Jan-2019: Open Acreage Licensing Programme Bid Round-II launched

Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Shri Dharmendra Pradhan launched NIO and MRSC for Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) Bid Round-II.

In this bid round, 14 Exploration & Production(E&P) blocks, with an area of approximately 30,000 sq. km., are being offered for bidding to the investor community under the investor friendly HELP regime. 10 blocks are based on Expressions of Interest submitted by the bidders, and 4 blocks have been carved out by the Government based on data received through the National Seismic Programme and the Resource Reassessment Study carried out by the Government.

The energy requirement of the country is increasing very fast, and we are mainly dependent on imports for fulfilling our fuel and transportation fuel requirements. E&P sector has been a challenge, and the Government has undertaken a large number of reforms to bring in more investment and increase domestic production. Almost 60,000 sq km area was offered under OALP Bid round I and 30,000 sq km more is being offered under the second round, while the third round is almost ready. Earlier the decision about exploration was based on the potential Government revenue, but didn’t yield much results. Now, the Government is working to increase production. For this purpose, IOR/EOR has been announced, production enhancement contract model is being worked out. More fiscal incentives will be given for increasing the production, and difficult fields will be given special incentives. More transparency has been brought about in policy making and stakeholders are being consulted. National oil companies will be encouraged to increase production, but at the same time, they will have to be more accountable and responsible.

Pradhan called for setting up of Indian standards for petroleum with respect to quality, safety and other aspects which should usher in innovations. He expressed the hope that the investors will whole-heartedly participate in the bidding rounds, bringing in more investments, creating jobs and improving self-sufficiency and scientific capacity.

India is 3rd largest energy consumer in the world and likely to have one of the fastest growing energy demand of the world in the coming years. As a step to meet this growing demand and in line with Prime Minister’s vision of achieving Energy Security and Sufficiency, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) has steered a plethora of reforms in the recent past years.

The Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) replacing the erstwhile New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) was approved in March 2016 and the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) along with the National Data Repository (NDR) were launched in June 2017 as the key drivers to accelerate the Exploration and Production (E&P) activities in India. The programme envisages six monthly periodic bidding rounds starting from July 1, 2017.

The first bidding round under OALP (Bid Round I) was launched in January 2018 and closed in May 2018 and 55 blocks covering 59,282 sq. km. area were awarded in October 2018.The Government is also in advanced stages of finalizing the OALP Bid Round III with approximately 32,000 sq. km. of area and the bidding is expected to be launched within next few weeks.

With this successful roll out of the HELP/OALP regimes, together with the National Data Repository (NDR), the Government has achieved a massive addition to the exploration acreage of India. The acreage which stood at approximately 90,000 sq. km. in 2017 was increased to 150,000 sq. km. after OALP I and would touch 2,10,000 sq. km after OALP Round II and III bidding exercises by May 2019 and is expected to touch 300,000 sq. km. by the end of the year 2019, with another two rounds of bidding expected to be finalized (IV and V) in 2019.

The licensing programme under HELP which adopts the Revenue Sharing Model is a step towards improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the Indian Exploration and Production (E&P) sector. It comes with attractive fiscal terms like reduced royalty rates and no oil cess, marketing and pricing freedom, submission of Expression of Interests (EoIs) round the year, bid rounds commencing every six months and a single license to cover conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources.

With the launch of Notice Inviting Offer (NIO), bidders can study the data available in National Data Repository (NDR) and select blocks for the bidding. The bidders would be able to submit their bids through an online e-bidding portal starting 8th January 2019 and the bidding round would continue till 12th March 2019. The blocks are spread across 7 sedimentary basins, 14 blocks are on offer under OALP-II which includes 8 blocks (On land), 5 blocks (Shallow Water) and 1 block(Ultra-Deep Water).  It is expected that OALP Round II would generate immediate exploration work commitment of around USD 500-600 million.

1-Oct-2018: Contracts signed under Open Acreage Licensing Policy Bid Round-I

Government of India signed the contracts of the blocks awarded under the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) Bid Round-I with the awardees at New Delhi.

Initially, 110 e-bids were received for 55 blocks on offer with participation from 9 companies, singly or in consortium. Finally, contracts have been signed for all 55 blocks with 6 companies. The details of the contract areas signed is placed at Annexure 1.This will add a huge accretion of 59,282 sq.km to the exploration area. This is about 65% of the area presently under exploration in the country. This will lead to significant increase in E&P activities in India and in long run discoveries from these field may significantly boost domestic production.

The bid round-I of OALP was launched in January 2018 under the liberalized Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP). It is for the first time that bidding in the E&P sector in India was for blocks that had been selected by bidders themselves with government playing a facilitator role. The OALP bid round-I has received overwhelming enthusiasm from various stakeholders of E&P industry, with all 55 blocks on offer receiving bids and being awarded.

Shri Dharmendra Pradhan congratulated the awardees and assured them of complete support and assistance from the Government. He reiterated the relentless efforts of the government to enhance domestic hydrocarbon production by putting forth new policy initiatives and new offers so that the true potential of Indian sedimentary basins is realized. The Minister said that the Companies have committed investment of about Rs 6000 Crore for exploring under this round. He said there is huge potential in these reserves and their exploration will positively impact the Indian economy. He said that the Government is working in a transparent manner, and policies are being made, after extensive consultation with all stakeholders. Shri Pradhan said that Minimum Government-Maximum Governance is not only a slogan for us, but a guiding principle. He said that India has already become third largest energy consumer in the world and the Government is committed to provide affordable energy to its citizens, and for this purpose, several initiatives have been taken to enhance the production of hydrocarbons.

13-Feb-2018: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas organized Facilitation Workshop under Open Acreage Licensing Programme in Mumbai

Over the recent past years MoPNG has undertaken a slew of initiatives to achieve Prime Minister’s vision for Energy Security and Sufficiency, in continuation to which OALP Bid Round I was launched in January 2018 under 55 bidder selected blocks, each carved out by prospective bidders themselves in promising basins with an area of 59,282 Sq. Kms were announced for bidding.

To handhold and apprise the prospective investor community about the salient features of HELP policy framework and details about the e-bidding process, Government successfully concluded a facilitation workshop in Mumbai on Feb 12, 2018. Besides the requisite information about OALP Bid Round I, the DGH officials also shared the information about the fields to be offered under DSF Bid round II which is soon to be launched by the government. 60 discovered small fields having established In-place volumes of 195 MMTOE in commercially producing basins are likely to be offered in DSF-II. As compared to DSF- I, the fields are larger in size with almost double in place volumes.

Successively such facilitation workshops are also being planned in Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Hyderabad to showcase the opportunities under OALP Bid Round-I and DSF-II. The next workshop is scheduled in Ahmedabad on February 15, 2018.

27-June-2017: Government launches Open Acreage Licensing Policy

The government liberalised the regime for oil and gas exploration by announcing Open Acreage Licensing process that allows companies to carve their own areas for hydrocarbon hunting.

As much as 52 per cent of India’s sedimentary basins are still unappraised and the last seismic data acquisition of the unappraised sedimentary basins was undertaken by the government nearly 25 years ago.

OAL will be under the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP).

Lack of updated G&G (geological and geophysical) data for the Indian Sedimentary Basin has been hampering our E&P (Exploration and Production) force. That’s why, the National Seismic Program was started last year.

The government is also coming up with new policies for Enhanced Oil Recovery, Production Enhancement Contracts, and a Shale Oil & Gas Policy for NELP and Pre-NELP blocks under the next set of PSC Reforms. The next round of bidding Round under the Discovered Small Field policy is also on the focus of the government.

The first window for submitting bids under the OAL will be from July 1 to November 15 this year. The finalisation of block and invitation of bids will take place on December 15. The bid submission window will be open for 10 weeks from then and the bid evaluation and declaration of bid winner will be done in another 10 weeks.

When someone identifies the acreage, a revenue commitment is also submitted for it. The bids will be conducted based on those revenue commitments under the revenue sharing contract.