In an effort to attract new investments and prop up domestic hydrocarbon production, the Indian government has announced plans to overhaul regulations for future exploration and production of oil and gas blocks. Under the new regulations, hydrocarbon producers will be awarded more pricing and marketing options along with financial incentives for early production stages from their blocks. Additional production - above normal production rates - will also receive fiscal incentives. The new rules will be implemented on 19 basins out of the 26 located in the country starting from the next licensing rounds. Private partnerships will also be encouraged in order to eventually lead to more discoveries and higher production.
One of the main objective targeted with these measures is to unlock the country's potential and to reduce its oil import dependence from the current 80% to 67% by 2022 and to 50% by 2030. The government's main tools for this purpose are the exploration rounds organised under the country's Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP), which was launched in 2017. They allow interested bidders to put in expression of interest (EoI) for prospecting oil and gas potential in an area that presently does not belong to any production or exploration license.