8th round of bidding for oil & gas blocks before March 09

The government will launch the eighth round of bidding for oil and gas blocks under the new exploration and licensing policy (NELP VIII) in the first quarter of 2009.

In the first six rounds of NELP, the government has awarded a total of 162 blocks and contracts for 44 blocks under NELP VII were signed today, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.

Also read: Cos sign contracts for oil, gas exploration at 44 locations

"We have started interacting with all the stakeholders for simplifying bid evaluation criteria and Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) for the forthcoming rounds of NELP and Coal bed Methane (CBM) policy. It would be our endeavour to launch NELP VIII and CBM IV rounds in the first quarter of 2009," he said.

Under the first six rounds of NELP, a total investment of $8.3 billion in exploration of oil and gas was committed, out of which about $4.5 billion has already been incurred on exploration and $1.4 billion on development of discoveries. A further $1.5 billion spend on exploration is budgeted for NELP VII.

Deora said so far 68 oil and gas discoveries in 19 blocks with inplace reserves of 500 million tonnes of oil and oil-equivalent gas had been established.

With exploration development efforts made under NELP, natural gas production in the country is likely to be doubled from its present level of about 80 million standard cubic metres per day by the end of 11th five year plan.