London: Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has said the largest auction of oil and gas blocks, aimed to attract an estimated investment of USD 3-4 billion, has drawn "excellent" response from global energy majors.
"A total of 181 bids, including 32 from foreign companies have been received," Deora told reporters here last evening.
Roadshows for 70 exploration blocks for oil and gas under the eighth round of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) and 10 blocks of coal bed methane under CBM-IV have been held at Mumbai, Houston, Calgary and London. Roadshows in Perth (September 22) and Brisbane (September 24-25) will follow.
At the roadshow here, presentations by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Directorate General of Hydrocarbons were made covering aspects related to investment opportunity in India, bid evaluation criteria, terms and conditions of NELP-VIII and CBM-IV.
Major E&P companies operating in India like ONGC,
Reliance Industries, BG, BP, Cairn and ENI made presentations
highlighting their experience and success stories in India.
"In the current global economic meltdown scenario, the
positive response at these roadshows by an excellent level of
participation of international players reflects the interest
and confidence of a spectrum of international E&P companies in
the Indian exploration opportunities," Deora said.
The bid rounds would close on October 12 and "provisional
results would be announced the same day," Deora said.
DGH Director General V K Sibal said India is estimated to
have a total reserve of 205 billion barrels of crude oil, of
which 68 billion barrels have been discovered so far.
The current annual demand for crude oil in India is 134
million tonnes of which "we produce 34 million tonnes and
import 100 million tonnes," Deora said.
Deora highlighted that the year 2009 has been remarkable
in many ways for the hydrocarbon sector in India as it marked
two historic milestones for the country. The first was the
coming on stream of the big Krishna Godavari D6 gas discovery
made by RIL in the deep waters off the coast of Andhra Pradesh
in April.
"With a peak production of 80 million standard cubic
meter per day (mmscmd) and doubling India's gas production in
the current year, KG D6 is all set to change the perspective
of the geological prospectively of the country," he said.
The second has been the remarkable effort of Cairn India
in bringing the Barmer discovery to production which was
inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in August.
"This find with a plateau production of 175,000 bpd, at
one stroke adds 20 per cent to the country's oil production,"
he said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Friday, September 11, 2009, 11:26