Aiyar pulls out all the stops for oil hunt

The time taken to award contracts under the NELP-V will be reduced to 4 months.

By his own admission, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar will be "nothing but a travelling salesman" for the next one month.

Beginning tomorrow, when the ministry will launch the roadshow for the fifth round of the new exploration licensing policy (NELP-V) in the Capital, Aiyar says he will be on the road till February 14 to market the 20 blocks that have been put on offer.

Speaking to reporters a day ahead of the roadshow in Delhi, Aiyar said the ministry had decided to reduce the time taken to award the contracts under the NELP-V to four months from six months taken under the NELP-IV.

The timetable drawn up by his ministry says the roadshows will be over in February and the awards will be made by July.

"A two-month time reduction may look small change in isolation but it is a huge gain for oil exploration companies, considering the billions of dollars involved. Also, it is in tune with international standards," he said.

The job does not end there. His ministry, Aiyar said, would also ensure that the contracts were signed in another two months""by September""and the successful bidders should be able to start operations by next January.

Considering the time taken in the past to obtain approvals, Aiyar said all the 20 blocks had already got defence and environment clearances in principle.

The ministry is also setting up a single window for the clearances needed following the award of the contracts. To take state governments on board, the petroleum secretary has written to chief secretaries of all the states concerned to designate a nodal officer to negotiate with the bidders.

Aiyar said his sales pitch to overseas companies would be that the Bay of Bengal had the potential to become a North Sea.

"With production from the North Sea having declined by 60 per cent in the last year, I will request them to shift their attention to the huge untapped areas of the Bay of Bengal," he said.

Aiyar said in his roadshows he would showcase the fact that only 18 per cent of India's sedimentary basin had been explored and there was a huge potential, given the oil and gas discoveries made by Reliance Industries and Niko Resources in the Krishna Godavari deepwater basin and by Cairn Energy in the Barmer district of Rajasthan.

Aiyar said 39 oil exploration companies had confirmed their participation in the roadshows in New Delhi, London, Dubai, Houston, Calgary and Moscow.

The companies include British Gas, BP Exploration, Total Elf, Statoil, Burren, Mercury, OMV, Hardy Oil and Cairns Energy. Several other big names were expected to confirm their participation shortly, he said.

While the main roadshows will be attended by the minister and the secretary, the petroleum ministry has pulled all its officers out of their present jobs and has asked them to devote their full time and energy to the marketing of the NELP-V. The minister is also involving former secretaries and academics to talk to global companies on the huge opportunities that the NELP-V provides.

A little bit of "oil diplomacy" is also on the cards. Aiyar is talking to the Indian diplomatic community abroad to network with prospective bidders in their countries and to remove any apprehension they might have.

"It is illogical that the Indian embassies were hardly involved in the country's oil exploration marketing efforts," he said.

Aiyar said he was aware of the fact that global oil majors such as ExxonMobil Corp had not bid for Indian exploration blocks offered under the NELP.

ExxonMobil and other big players such as BP and Royal Dutch/Shell had the most advanced deepwater technology, but were focusing on more promising deepwater areas in West Africa, the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil.

While pointing out that he would try to persuade these majors to bid in this round, he said small foreign companies like Cairn Energy had a big role to play in India's oil exploration efforts.

On the other highlights of the NELP-V, Aiyar said the process would be more transparent than the last four rounds. All geo-scientific data will be available online and digital data rooms will be set up in London, Houston, Calgary and Dubai. The software will enable companies to review and analyse data and provide clarifications on the spot.

Six deep-sea blocks, two shallow water and 12 on-land blocks involving an investment of $1 billion have been offered to public and private sector firms as part of the NELP-V. Of the deep-water blocks, two each are on the east and west coasts and two in the prospective Andaman area.

The shallow water blocks are on the west coast while the 12 on-land blocks are spread across eight basins: Assam, Arakan, Cambay, Rajasthan, Kaveri, Ganga valley, Vindhya, Deccan Syneclise and Krishna Godavari.