MoPNG | Facilitation Workshop under Open Acreage Licensing Programme, Mumbai

Over the recent past years MoPNG has undertaken a slew of initiatives to achieve Prime Minister’s vision for Energy Security and Sufficiency, in continuation to which OALP Bid Round I was launched in January 2018 under 55 bidder selected blocks, each carved out by prospective bidders themselves in promising basins with an area of 59,282 Sq. Kms were announced for bidding by Hon’ble Minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan.

To handhold and apprise the prospective investor community about the salient features of HELP policy framework and details about the ebidding process, Government successfully concluded a facilitation workshop in Mumbai on Feb 12, 2018.Shri Atanu Chakraborty DG, DGH along with other senior Government officials conducted the workshop. The workshop witnessed over 150 participants including financial experts, leading professionals from the industry and technical personnel from E&P community. Besides the requisite information about OALP Bid Round I, the DGH officials also shared the information about the fields to be offered under DSF Bid round II which is soon to be launched by the government. 60 discovered small fields having established In-place volumes of 195 MMTOE in commercially producing basins are likely to be offered in DSF-II. As compared to DSF- I, the fields are larger in size with almost double in place volumes.

Shri. Atanu Chakraborty, set the context for the workshop by delivering a talk on the various investment opportunities available under the renewed policy framework in the E&P sector. Shri. Amar Nath, Joint Secretary (Exploration) talked on the policy regime under HELP and OALP.  There were detailed sessions on Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Programme (HELP), ebidding process for OALP, Taxation framework applicable to the E&P sector etc. To address the queries of the participants, facilitation kiosks were also set up. Shri. Atanu Chakraborty also took time and briefed the media to share the advances in the Indian E&P sector. Several One on One interactions were also undertaken with prospective bidders.

Successively such facilitation workshops are also being planned in Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Hyderabad to showcase the opportunities under OALP Bid Round-I and DSF-II. The next workshop is scheduled in Ahmedabad on February 15, 2018.