India launches new liberalised bid round
India 
NEW DELHI, June 28, 2017 – Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced on Wednesday the country’s first Open Acreage Licensing (OAL) round, as he unveiled the National Data Repository system that stores information about 3.14 million square kilometres of acreage.
Some 2.7 million square kilometres of sedimentary basins would be made available, and investors would be able to carve out areas from this acreage, local and international media reported. From the new database, they would be able to gather seismic and production data for both licensed and unlicensed acreage.
These blocks would then be put on offer under the new Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP), a flexible revenue-sharing model introduced this year, and auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Initial reports claimed that expressions of interest would have to be filed by November 15, and that the country would hold 2 OAL rounds per year thereafter, each January and July.
India’s first OAL round is also the first major auction round since 2010, when the country’s previous licensing policy, called NELP, failed to attract the desired interest from major international players.
Last year, India held a bidding round for discovered small field contract areas under a modified version of the old NELP, but it also failed to attract interest from major international oil firms.
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