ONGC wins 7 oil blocks, OIL 4 in latest bid round

New Delhi, October 22

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has won seven out of the 11 oil and gas exploration blocks offered for bidding in the latest licensing round, upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said on Thursday. Oil India Ltd (OIL) won the remaining four blocks, it said.

The government had offered 11 blocks for exploration and production of oil and gas in the fifth bid round under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OLAP).

A total of 12 bids — seven by ONGC and four by Oil India Ltd (OIL) — were received for the 11 blocks on offer at the close of bidding on June 30. Invenire Petrodyne Ltd was the only private bidder for one block.

While ONGC was the sole bidder for six blocks, OIL was the lone bidder in all the four blocks it bid for. ONGC won all six blocks where it was the sole bidder and also the one block where Invenire Petrodyne had bid.

The previous bid round, OALP-IV, too had seen just eight bids coming in for seven blocks on offer. ONGC had walked away with all the seven oil and gas blocks on offer.

Prior to OALP-V, the government had awarded 94 blocks in four OALP bid rounds in the past two and a half years. These 94 blocks cover an exploratory area of about 1,36,800 square kilometers over 16 Indian sedimentary basins. — PTI