Fifth oil, gas block bids in Apr

The fifth round of bidding for oil and gas exploration blocks under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP-V) would be launched in April, the government announced yesterday.

"Although the Lok Sabha has been dissolved, the work of the government will go on. The fifth round of NELP will be announced in the first or second week of April," Petroleum Minister Ram Naik said at the ceremony to sign production sharing contracts for the 20 oil and gas blocks awarded under NELP-IV and eight coal-bed methane (CBM) blocks awarded in the second round of CBM bidding.

Public sector Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), on its own and in association with its partners, has been awarded 14 out of the 20 oil and gas exploration blocks while Reliance Industries has bagged one.

Of the eight CBM blocks, ONGC has clinched five and RIL three. While the previous NELP rounds concentrated on giving hydrocarbon-rich deep sea blocks on the east and west coasts, NELP-V would predominantly see onland blocks, Petroleum Secretary B K Chaturvedi said.

Along with NELP-V, the government will also put for bidding more CBM blocks for extracting gas from coal seams.

"A total of 90 contracts have been signed under NELP and 16 contracts for exploration of CBM," Naik said.

An investment of around Rs 20,000 crore has been committed under NELP, he said.

In all, 21 oil and gas discoveries had been made over the last two years with in-place reserve accretion of more than 800 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas, he said.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), which has entered the upstream sector for the first time and has bid along with ONGC, has been successful in the Cauvery onland block and deepwater blocks in the Krishna-Godavari basin and Mahanadi basin.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, in consortium with ONGC, has bagged two Kerala-Konkan deepwater blocks.

Of the 8 CBM blocks, ONGC has won South and North Karanpura blocks in Jharkhand, Satpura in Madhya Pradesh and Wardha in Maharashtra. It along with GSPL won the Barmer block in Gujarat.

Reliance bagged the contract for Sonhat block in Chhattisgarh and two Barmer blocks in Rajasthan.