Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) along with its partners will sign contracts for half of the 34 oil and gas blocks awarded in the latest round of auction under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) on Wednesday. Of the 70 blocks offered in NELP-VIII, companies bid for only 36 blocks. ONGC and its partner won 17 areas out of their bidding for a maximum of 25 blocks.
Among the 24 deep water blocks that the government had put on offer, only eight received bids, all of which were single bids. ONGC and partners bagged seven, while Cairn Energy of the U.K. got one block.
Similarly, of the 28 shallow water blocks on offer, 13 received bids. ONGC got five of these as lead partner and one where Oil India Ltd (OIL) was the operator, while BHP Billiton Petroleum won three and Cairn Energy got a KG basin offshore block.
Of the 18 on-land blocks, bids were received for 15, four of which went to ONGC, while other successful bidders included Oil India, NTPC, Esveegee Steel and Jubilant.
ONGC also won seven deep-sea blocks, five as the sole operator, one as a joint operator with OIL and one with the BG Group of the U.K. as the operator. In all, ONGC won 17 blocks — 14 as operator and three as non-operator.
ONGC's other partners in deep-water blocks included Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (GSPC), GAIL India, NTPC and Andhra Pradesh Gas Infrastructure Corp. Shallow water blocks had Indian Oil Corp and Adani Welspun Exploration Ltd. as additional partners.
