Open Acreage Licensing Programme Bid Round-VII launched

Since the launch of HELP on 30 March 2016, five rounds of OALP have been concluded for 105 E&P blocks; award of 21 blocks under sixth round of OALP is under progress.

In continuation of its aggressive programme for exploration and adhering to the prescribed timelines, the Government has launched the Open Acreage Licensing Programme(OALP) Bid Round-VII for International Competitive Bidding.

The bids can be submitted through a dedicated online e-bidding portal till 1200 hrs. on February 15, 2022. Award of these blocks is likely be completed by the end of March 2022. Successful award of Round-VII Blocks would add further 15,766 sq. km of exploration acreage and cumulative acreage under OALP will be increased to  207,692 sq. km.

The Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) was approved in March 2016. In continuation to its determination for reduction in import dependency of oil and gas and accelerating E&P activities, the Government notified the further policy reforms in Exploration and Licensing Policy in February 2019. The focus was shifted from 'revenue' to 'production' maximization’. There is continued focus on greater transparency and streamlined procedures.

Since the launch of HELP on 30 March 2016, five rounds of OALP have been concluded for 105 E&P blocks; award of 21 blocks under sixth round of OALP is under progress. These 126 blocks comprise about 191,926 sq.km. of area spread across 18 sedimentary basins.

Eight blocks under present bid round are spread across 6 Sedimentary Basins and include five Onland blocks (four in Category-I Basins and one in Category-III Basin), two shallow Water blocks (both in Category-I  Basin) and one Ultra Deep Water block (Category-I Basin). It is expected that OALP Round VII would generate immediate exploration work commitment of around USD 300-400 million. The bidding documents and details of this bid round are available on https://online.dghindia.org/oalp.

The Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy (HELP), which adopts the Revenue Sharing Contract model, is a significant 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.

The XIIth window for submission of Expressions of Interest (EoIs) is currently open till March 31, 2022.

(With Inputs from PIB)