NEW DELHI New Delhi: India's biggest oil and gas bidding round saw four bidders, including state-owned ONGC and OIL and private sector Vedanta Ltd, while most blocks received only two bids, according to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). The OALP-IX bidding round, in which 28 blocks or areas spread over 1.36 lakh square kilometre were offered for exploration and production of oil and gas, saw for the first time Reliance Industries Ltd-BP Plc bid jointly with ONGC for a block in the Gujarat offshore area.
Reliance and its supermajor partner BP Plc had bid in only two of the last eight oil and gas bidding rounds since 2017. The Reliance-BP alliance bid and won the two blocks it bid for in the previous round and this is the first time they have teamed up with ONGC to bid for a shallow water block in the Gujarat-Saurashtra basin.
In the previous eighth round of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-VIII), state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) had not bid for the ultra deepsea Krishna Godavari basin block sought by the Reliance-BP combine. The DGH on Monday released the names of bidders for 28 blocks offered under the OALP-IX round, for which bidding closed on September 21.
ONGC bid for 14 blocks alone and bid with partners such as state-owned Oil India Ltd (OIL) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for four other blocks. After considering its bid with Reliance-BP, ONGC bid for 19 of the 28 blocks on offer. Vedanta Ltd, owned by mining billionaire Anil Aggarwal, bid for all 28 blocks on offer, while Sun Petrochemicals Ltd bid for seven areas.
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