The Directorate General of
Hydrocarbons (DGH) is ready with its final recommendations for awarding 45 of
the 57 oil and gas exploration blocks offered by the government under the
seventh round of the New Exploration and Licensing Policy (NELP VII).
The consortium of Reliance Industries
and British Petroleum has been recommended for award of one deepwater in the
Krishna Godavari basin, KG-DWN-2005/2. The consortium of BHP Bilton Petroleum
International Exploration and GVK Oil & Gas has been recommended for award of
seven deepwater blocks.
Of the remaining blocks, the
consortium of ONGC and GSPC have been awarded two deepwater blocks and one block
each has been recommended for being awarded to Cairn Energy and the ONGC-OIL duo
respectively. Of the 19 deepwater blocks on offer, 15 companies submitted bids
for 12 blocks. There were no takers for the remaining seven deepwater blocks on
offer under NELP VII.
For shallow water blocks, seven bids
were received, against 9 blocks offered. Of the seven blocks, the consortium of
ONGC and GSPC has been recommended for award of three blocks while the
consortium of HPCL-Mittal Energy with ONGC, Adani Welspun Exploration, Essar E&P
and Nobel Energy and the consortium of HPCL-Mittal with ONGC and GSPC have been
awarded one block each.
In the onland blocks category, bids
were received for 26 of the 29 blocks on offer. ONGC and its consortia partners
have been recommended for award of eight blocks, GeGlobal Resources has got two,
HPCL-Mittal consortium with OIL and HOEC has got one.
Other successful candidates include
Deep Eergy , HOEC-BRPL-JSPL combine, Quest Petroleum-QuippoOil-SREI-Valdel-Primera
consortium, GAIL-GSPC-Bengal Energy, Interlink Petroleum, Indian Oil
Corporation, Omkar Natural Resources and Vasundhara Resources.
One change which has been recommended
by the DGH, against its earlier provisional result, is that the onland block
RJ-ONN-2005/1 has now been awarded to the consortium of HOEC-BRPL-IMC-JSPC,
against earlier recommendation (at the time of bid opening) to ONGC-GSPC
consortium.