Oil majors eye oil exploration in India

Oil majors Petronas of Malaysia, Total of France, Statoil of Norway, Talisman of Canada and BP and BG Group of UK have envinced interest in exploring oil and gas in India.

Several global oil majors, many of them for the first time, have shown interest in the latest offering of 20 oil and gas exploration blocks put up for bidding under the 5th round of new exploration licensing policy , a government official said.

The recent discoveries of gas in the Bay of Bengal and oil in the deserts of Rajasthan led Statoil, Eni Spa, BP, Petrobras of Brazil, Merlin Energy, Talisman and Total to buy data packages of several blocks on offer in the latest round.

Besides the new players, ONGC, Reliance Industries, Cairn Energy of UK, Niko Resources of Canada, Gujarat State Petroleum Corp, Oil India, Gail, Bharat Petroleum and NTPC have explored investing in the blocks on offer.

Krishna Godavari basin block, where Reliance and Cairn have struck huge gas reserves, has attracted the most attention with every company buying the data package. The two blocks in Rajasthan, Cairn's happy hunting ground, saw eight companies line up with Niko, Petronas, Reliance, Talisman and BG leading the pack.

Except for a shallow water block in Gujarat's Saurashtra region, all blocks saw considerable interest, the official said.