India’s sixth licensing round for 21 blocks attracts three bidders

According to upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, India’s latest bid round for 21 oil and gas blocks attracted just three bidders. Two of whom were state-owned explorers Oil and Natural Gas Cor­po­ration (ONGC) and Oil India Limited (OIL). As many as 21 blocks or areas were offered for exploration and production of oil and gas in the open acreage licensing policy (OALP) bid round-VI, for which bidding closed on October 6, 2021. Besides ONGC and OIL, Sun Petrochemicals was the only other company to have bid. Of the 21 blocks on offer, 18 got a single bid each and the remaining three blocks had two bidders. ONGC bid for 19 out of the 21 blocks on offer and was the sole bidder for 16 of them, while OIL bid for two (for which it was the sole bidder). The 21 blocks are spread over 11 sedimentary basins and nine states, covering 35,346 square km of area. Of these, 15 blocks are on land, four in shallow waters and two in ultra-deep water. Twelve blocks are in Category-I basins, four in Category-II, and the remaining five in Category-III.