Govt to offer 34 areas for exploration under NELP-IX

The government will offer 34 areas, including eight in deep-sea, for exploration of oil and gas in the ninth round of auction under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), Oil Minister Murli Deora said today.

NELP-IX will be announced on October 15 and the first roadshow will be held in Mumbai on October 18. The last date for bidding is March 18.

"These (the blocks on offer in NELP-IX) include eight deepwater blocks, seven shallow water blocks, and nineteen onland blocks. The area of these 34 blocks is of the order of 88,807 square kilometers," he said at the curtain raiser investor meet in London today.

In the eight rounds of NELP since 1999, 235 blocks have been awarded till date. This has resulted in enhancement of exploration coverage from 11 per cent to about 58 per cent of Indian sedimentary basin between 2000 and 2010.

So far, "87 oil and gas discoveries have been made in 26 blocks (awarded under NELP). Accretion of in-place hydrocarbon reserves of more than 640 million tonnes of oil equivalent has taken place," he said in a speech which was released to media by his office here.

The NELP rounds have secured $14 billion investment, he said, adding the last round, NELP-VIII, attracted investment commitment of $1.1 billion.

Reliance Industries' Dhirubhai-1 and 3 gas finds in the D6 block in Krishna Godavari basin off the east coast has been the biggest success of NELP. The block is currently producing 60 million standard cubic meters of gas per day, which has increased the domestic gas production by about 72 per cent over that of 2008-09, he said.

Besides upstream, the government is also promoting investment in the refinery sector in a major way. "The refinery capacity is set to increase even further from the present 184 million tonnes per annum to about 255 million tonnes per annum during the XI Plan (2007-12)," he said.

Deora said the government has initiated action to develop and put in place a policy environment for exploitation of shale gas in Indian basins.

"It is expected that in about a year's time, blocks can be offered for shale gas," he said.