After a lapse of more than three years, the ministry for petroleum and natural gas has started negotiations with private bidders for the award of 12 medium and small discovered oil and gas fields.
The ministry has amended the model production sharing contract for these discovered fields in view of the criticism concerning award of some discovered fields, especially Panna, Mukta and Tapti.
The new round of negotiations is based on this amended production sharing contract and officials are hopeful of finalising the contracts early 2000.
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"The response of the bidders is quite positive and discussions are progressing smoothly. Barring unforeseen hitches, we should be able to wrap up these contracts in a couple of months," officials said.
Though the government had finalised the award of these discovered fields to joint ventures in October 1996, not much headway was made in signing these contracts because of criticism surrounding the award of Panna, Mukta and Tapti fields.
At one time, the ministry had even decided to change the policy in view of the criticism and put on hold signing of contracts.
Though the ministry was of the view that there was nothing wrong with the policy, it had decided to abandon it in view of highly critical views against it expressed both inside and outside Parliament. "The policy had been given such a bad name, it was prudent to hang it," an official said.
"So far as the ministry is concerned, it is sure that the existing policy is quite sound. We have defended it both in courts and before the comptroller and auditor general (CAG). However, the public p