The Indian Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH), the upstream technical arm of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, has decided to extend the bidding round of 55 oil and gas exploration blocks currently held under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) Bid Round-I and the new Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) by another month. The initial deadline was set on 3 April 2018 but it is now pushed back to 2 May 2018.
Approximately 65% of the blocks are located in the States of Assam, Gujarat and Rajasthan. The blocks cover around 59,282 km² and the government estimates 220 Gboe are yet to be discovered and monetized in the country. India, which currently imports 80% of its oil needs, has set itself the goal of cutting its fuel import dependency to two-thirds by 2022 and up to 50% by 2030.
The current auction is the country's first oil and gas licensing round after 8 years. The last bidding round occurred in 2010 and 254 blocks were awarded. However, 156 of them have been relinquished due to poor prospectivity.
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