Page 5 - AsianOil Week 41 2021

AsianOil SOUTH ASIA AsianOil

India bid round fails to

woo private investors

The country’s state majors once again dominated the
latest Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) bid round

COMMENTARY INDIA’S ongoing efforts to reinvent itself as a When announcing the launch of the bid
destination of choice for upstream investors round in August, the Ministry of Petroleum and
continue to yield minimal results, with the gov- Natural Gas said licences would be awarded by
WHAT: ernment’s latest bid round failing to garner much the end of November, generating $300-400mn
OALP-VI winning bids interest. worth of immediate exploration work commit-
from state-run ONGC The government launched the sixth Open ments in the process.
and OIL. Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-VI) in August, The government introduced the OALP
offering up 21 blocks that included 15 onshore, system in 2016 as part of a wider upstream
WHY: four in shallow waters and two in ultra-deep reform that saw the New Exploration
Recent reforms did not waters. But with the closing date for bids set for Licensing Policy (NELP) replaced with the
have enough time to October 6, upstream regulator DGH revealed Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing
affect upstream investor this week that only three companies participated Policy (HELP).
sentiment. and that included state-run Oil and Natural Gas OALP was supposed to attract greater foreign
Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL). and private sector interest in the country’s oil and
WHAT NEXT: Sun Petrochemicals was the only company gas basins, but replacing the system where the
The next bid round may from the private sector to bid, with foreign inves- government picked the blocks it would auction
see greater foreign and tors once again absent from an Indian bid round. with a model that involved interested parties
private interest. New Delhi has been striving for a number of drawing the boundaries of the acreages that
years to improve the business landscape in the were of interest. These blocks are they put up for
Indian upstream, and has had some success. auction.
Yet there remains a distinct lack of enthusiasm However, barring OALP-I, which saw
among foreign and large private players for the Vedanta win 41 of the 55 blocks on offer, private
country’s exploration offerings. sector participation has been subdued. The next
four rounds saw Vedanta pick up another 10
Limited interest licences while OIL won 25 and ONGC secured
ONGC was the sole bidder for 16 of OALP-VI’s 24.
blocks, while also outbidding Sun Petrochemi- OALP-VI, then, will extend the trend of gov-
cals for three licences, DGH has said. OIL, mean- ernment-backed companies dominating India’s
while, was unchallenged over the two blocks for upstream bid rounds, even though this is far
which it placed bids. from the government’s desired outcome.

Week 41 14•October•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P5