Second round of DSF bidding may attract about $1.2 bn investments: DGH

The Director General of Hydrocarbons on Wednesday said the ongoing Discovered Small Filed (DSF) second round bidding, once completed, will entice about $1.2 billion worth of investments by the successful bidders.

"The total investment committed in the DSF-I was $600 million. We expect it to double this time at least double to $1200 million (USD 1.2 billion).

Here the area is also doubled and reserves are also doubled 9 when compared to the round one). The area is 3000 Sq Km and reserves are 190 mmtoe ( million metric tonnes of oil equivalent)," VP Joy, Director General of Directorate of Hydrocarbons told reporters.

He was in the city to participate in the investor meet organised by the DGH for the DSF Bid Round-II.

He said under the current round 25 contract areas covering 59 discovered oil and gas fields spread over 3000 Sq Km with prospective resource base of over 190 mmtoe was announced.

The e-bidding portal was open since August 9 and would continue till December 18.

The government had in 2016 brought a new DSF policy, offering "idle" small discovered fields of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) in an auction on liberalised terms including marketing and pricing freedom and lower taxes.

In the first round of bidding for DSF last year, 134 bids were received for 34 blocks out of 46 on offer.

Joy said within this financial year the contracts would be awarded to the successful bidders who were supposed to start production within three years after being awarded the contract.

"The successful bidder will get the Petroleum Mining Lease on their name.

They will have to submit the field development plan. Then drill the wells and start the production. As per the terms and conditions, they will have to start production within three years after they were awarded," he explained.

Replying to a query on the National Seismic Programme, he said the government has earmarked Rs 30 billion for the purpose and about Rs 10 billion was spent on that.

Joy said the processed data pertaining to Mahanadi Basin has already been published and about 60 per cent of the data has been acquired.

"Rajasthan data we are hoping to display next month," he said.

The DGH had identified 26 basins across the country and out of which only seven are witnessing commercial production and another five basins have been identified of having good potential of oil and gas reserves.