The government started the 10th round of bid for exploration and production of oil and gas properties today. With this, the Open Ekrej License Policy (OALP-10) started.
This round of dialects launched during the India Energy Week Summit released here is the largest. In this, bids have been called for 25 blocks spread over an area of ​​1.91 lakh square kilometers in 13 sediment basin. Of these, 19 blocks are located within the sea at some distance from the coast. Earlier, in the ninth round of OALP, the area of ​​1.36 lakh square kilometers was opened for dialects. In the nine rounds so far, the government has asked for bid for blocks located in a total of 3.78 lakh square kilometers.
In the tenth round, 12 blocks are very deep water, 6 in shallow water area and 1 block is in deep water area. OALP-10 was started by Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri in the presence of UK Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change Edward Miliband, Minister of State for Energy Affairs of Qatar, Sad Sherida al-Kabi and Deputy Prime Minister of Tanzania in the presence of Doto Mashaka Bitto .
Officials say that due to the introduction of the oil sector (Regulation and Development) Amendment Bill, 2024 in Parliament, India wants to get bids from foreign companies this time. The bill was passed in the last session of the Rajya Sabha and is yet to be passed in the Lok Sabha. In this, the situation has been clarified by providing and expanding petroleum leases separate from mining leases. At the same time, international arbitration has been allowed and a new dispute resolution system has been created for excavation and production sector. Even more important is to bring more simple arrangements for business and make the procedures of approval facilitated. All the legendary companies in the world, such as Chevron, Exonmobil and Totllenge, were complained that these procedures increase the challenge for them.
The dialects for OALP-9 were opened in January last year and the new era was announced after more than a year. The results of OLAP-9 have not been announced yet. No foreign company took part in it.
India's expectations
There are high expectations from this period. Despite the 9 rounds of OLAP, India was produced in 2023-24 in 2023-24, which is less than 3.2 million tonnes of 1999-2000. Oil areas like Bombay High have become old and have found less success in search of new big stores. Due to this, production has decreased after 2011 and 3-3.5 million tonnes of production has been done every year.
Industries associated with the industry have described limited stores, older infrastructure and high cost of exploration as a challenge. India is estimated to be about 33.6 lakh sq km of sediment in India, including 26 sediment basins. Out of this, 16.3 lakh sq km of land, 4.1 lakh sq km from coast is in shallow area and deep water sector beyond 13.2 lakh sq km beyond 400 meters.
First Published – February 11, 2025 | 10:52 PM IST
