The directorate general of hydrocarbons (DGH) is ready with its final recommendations to the empowered committee of secretaries for awarding 45 of the 57 oil and gas exploration blocks offered by the government under the seventh round of the New Exploration and Licensing Policy (Nelp-VII).
The consortium of Reliance Industries and British Petroleum has been recommended for award of one deepwater in the Krishna Godavari basin, KG-DWN-2005/2. The consortium of BHP Bilton Petroleum International Exploration and GVK Oil and Gas Ltd has been recommended for award of seven deepwater blocks. Both BHP Billiton of Australia and BP (Alpha) Exploration, UK are the new entrants in India?s E&P sector.
Of the remaining blocks, the consortium of ONGC and GSPC have been awarded two deepwater blocks and one block each has been recommended for being awarded to Cairn Energy and the ONGC-OIL duo respectively. Of the 19 deepwater blocks on offer, 15 companies submitted bids for 12 blocks. There were no takers for the remaining seven deepwater blocks on offer under Nelp-VII.
For shallow water blocks, seven bids were received, against 9 blocks offered. Of the seven blocks, the consortium of ONGC and GSPC has been recommended for award of three blocks while the consortium of HPCL-Mittal Energy with ONGC, Adani Welspun Exploration, Essar E&P and Nobel Energy and the consortium of HPCL-Mittal with ONGC and GSPC have been awarded one block each.
In the onland blocks category, bids were received for 26 of the 29 blocks on offer. ONGC and its consortia partners have been recommended for award of eight blocks, GeGlobal Resources has got two, HPCL-Mittal consortium with OIL and HOEC has got one.
Other successful candidates include Deep Eergy , HOEC-BRPL-JSPL combine, Quest Petroleum-QuippoOil-SREI-Valdel-Primera consortium, GAIL-GSPC-Bengal Energy, Interlink Petroleum, Indian Oil Corporation, Omkar Natural Resources and Vasundhara Resources Ltd.
One change which has been recommended by the DGH, against its earlier provisional result, is that the onland block RJ-ONN-2005/1 has now been awarded to the consortium of HOEC-BRPL-IMC-JSPC, against earlier recommendation (at the time of bid opening) to ONGC-GSPC consortium.
A total of 96 companies participated in the Nelp-VII bid process, including 75 Indian (many of the names were unheard of before in India?s E&P sector) and 21 foreign companies.
However, other than BHP Billiton and BP, there has been no participation from any big global E&P player in this latest round of offering of E&P blocks.