The second round of auctions of hydrocarbon fields under the Discovered Small Field (DSF) policy has been deferred by two months. The bidding will now start in September 2018 instead of July 2018 as scheduled earlier.
The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) on Tuesday changed the timeline for the second round in the brochure available on its website.
While the DGH officially did not cite any reason for changing the dates, a person close to the development requesting anonymity said this is due to pending necessary approvals from the ECS for NIO and other documents for DSF Round II. “Though the government was expecting to finish all processes by end of June and launch in first week of July, the process has been delayed,” said the person.
Earlier, the first round of auctions under the open acreage licensing policy was also extended from the original date by a month to May 2, 2018, without citing any reason.
The Union Cabinet had in September 2015 approved 69 marginal fields to be offered under the DSF Round I. Of these, 67 DSFs were clubbed into 46 contract areas and put on offer through online international competitive bidding. In March 2017, 31 contracts were signed with 22 companies, of which 15 were new entrants.
The Cabinet again in February, 2018 approved the second round of DSF auctions under which 60 discovered small fields with an estimated 195 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent will be on offer. Out of the 60 fields, 22 fields belong to ONGC, five to Oil India and 12 are relinquished discovered fields from the New Exploration and Licensing Policy blocks. In addition, 21 fields are the ones that did not receive any investor interest under DSF. The 60 fields are on offer clubbed into 26 contract areas.
The government at that time also said that an empowered committee of secretaries (ECS) comprising petroleum secretary, expenditure secretary and law secretary will finalise and approve the model revenue sharing contract, notice inviting offer (NIO) and other documents for DSF round-II.
The DGH at present is operating without a director general as former director Atanu Chakraborty has been transferred as secretary in the department of investment and asset management. The charge of DGH has been temporarily given to joint secretary for exploration in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas.
