New Delhi: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and mining billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Ltd are set to win nine oil and gas blocks each in the latest auction while Reliance Industries and its British partner BP Plc is set to retain a block that contains gas discoveries they had previously made.
Sources said the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) has completed the evaluation of the bids received for 32 oil and gas exploration blocks that were auctioned in the latest licensing round.
As per the bid evaluation, ONGC and Vedanta Ltd are top bidders in nine blocks each and state-owned Oil India Ltd (OIL) in 12 areas. Reliance-BP combine outbid ONGC in one Krishna Godavari basin block in the Bay of Bengal. The winners of the auction will be announced after the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sources added.
Bidding for 14 blocks on offer in the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) round-II and another 18 oil and gas blocks and 5 coal-bed methane (CBM) blocks on offer in OALP-III closed on May 15. Reliance-BP had made their first bid in eight years when they sought an area that contained natural gas discoveries they had previously made, sources said.
The partners had to relinquish more than half of their eastern offshore KG-D6 area in 2013 after failing to meet government timelines. The area given away contained 3-4 natural gas discoveries.
So, when the government in July 2017 allowed companies to carve out blocks of their choice with a view to bring about 2.8 million sq km of unexplored area in the country under exploration, Reliance-BP sought the KG area containing the discoveries.
