Govt may allow ONGC to auction marginal fields

The government may allow state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to auction small and marginal fields that it has not found economical to develop, so that the discoveries in the fields could be brought into production.

ONGC has a total of 165 marginal fields, of which 144 fields have either been put on production or are in the process of monetisation. The remaining 21 fields might be auctioned for development through an international competitive bidding (ICB) route, company sources said.

These 21 marginal fields comprise of five oilfields (four onland and one offshore), 14 gasfields (nine onland and five offshore) and two offshore oil and gas fields, which have been estimated to cumulatively hold crude reserves of 0.4969 million tonnes and gas reserves of 1.519 billion cubic metres.

Marginal fields are the oil and gas discoveries made by national oil companies in blocks awarded to them on nomination basis, but have not been exploited on the ground of commercial viability of technological constraints.

Sources said the petroleum ministry is likely to approach the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) soon for approval of the new Marginal Field Policy (MFP), under which ONGC and Oil India Ltd can auction off a large number of marginal fields, where discoveries have been made but not monetised, for development.

Of the 21 marginal fields of ONGC, five are in Gujarat, one in Rajasthan and seven in Andhra Pradesh, while the remaining eight are in shallow water off the west coast.