 "Government extends timeline for submitting bids for OALP Round-VIII")
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoP&NG), has extended the deadline for submitting bids for the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) Bid Round-VIII. This round offers 10 blocks for international competitive bidding.
The bids can be submitted through a dedicated online e-bidding portal till 12:00 hours, by July 5, the ministry said in a notification on Monday. The award of the OALP Round-VIII blocks will add an additional 34,364.53 square km of acreage to the exploration portfolio, bringing the total acreage under the OALP to 242,055 square km.
The following blocks would be available for bidding, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said: CB-ONHP-2022/1 in the Cambay basin covering 188.52 square km, AS-ONHP-2022/1 in the Assam Shelf covering 2,057.63 square km, MB-OSHP-2022/1 in Mumbai Offshore covering 4,107.97 square km, GK-OSHP-2022/1 in the Kutch region covering 765.54 square km, KK-OSHP-2022/1 in the Kerala Konkan region covering 6,717.56 square km, BP-OSHP-2022/1 in the Bengal Purnea area covering 5,754.92 square km, GS-DWHP-2022/1 in Saurashtra covering 2,742.7 square km, KK-DWHP-2022/1 in the Kerala Konkan covering 1,112.71 square km, KG-UDWHP-2022/1 in Krishna Godavari covering 1,199.64 square km, and MN-UDWHP-2022/1 in the Mahanadi covering 9,717.34 square km.
The Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) was promulgated on March 30, 2016. Since then, seven rounds of OALP have been successfully completed, and 134 exploration and production (E&P) blocks have been awarded by the government, covering an area of 2,07,691 square km spread across 19 sedimentary basins.