Oil firms may soon get rights to choose exploration blocks

After eight rounds of auction, India is moving towards Open Acreage Licensing Policy, where oil firms can choose the blocks they want to explore without waiting for the government to put them on offer.

"Our intention is to move to the OALP regime as soon as possible," Oil Minister Murli Deora said at the signing of the Production Sharing Contract for blocks awarded in the eighth round of auction.

"Under this policy, companies can suggest any block for offer at any time, without waiting for the announcement of the bids under New Exploration Licensing Policy," he said.

Companies can choose any area or block they wish to explore for oil and gas and approach the Government for award.

The government will then put up an offer for that particular area. "The block will be awarded to the party giving the best bid," Deora said.

The OALP is likely to be preceded by a last round of auction under NELP (NELP-IX) by the end of the year. "It would be our endeavour to launch NELP-IX round in the third quarter of 2010," Deora said.

For the OALP to become operational, the establishment of the National Data Repository was a pre-requisite.

"Directorate General of Hydrocarbon is in the process of setting up the NDR, which will archive all E&P data, under one roof," Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada said.

"Certain regulations regarding ownership of data. Sharing of information in the public domain etc will be required to be formulated while setting up the NDR. These issues are being looked into," he said.

DGH Director General S K Srivastava said that $1.34 billion investment has been committed in oil and gas hunt in the 36 blocks that were bid for in the NELP-VIII round that concluded last year. "This was better than $1.2 billion investment committed in the previous round," he said.