Unified licensing will be gamechanger in OAL: DGH Atanu Chakraborty

The govt has already got the majority of the clearances required for the current round of auctions

The gamechanger during the current round of open acreage licensing (OAL) hydrocarbon auction will be unified licensing, through which companies can explore shale and coal-bed methane too in the blocks, said Atanu Chakraborty, Director General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), on Thursday. 

"During the current round, six companies have submitted an expression of interest for 55 blocks. I believe that single licence for all the hydrocarbon products (including shale and CBM) is the real game changer during this rounds. This does not mean that India will not go for shale and CBM auctions separately in future," he said. 

The government has already got the majority of the clearances required for the current round of auctions. For the current rounds, DGH has roped in Mjunction Services Ltd, a B2B e-commerce company, for providing the platform of e-bidding, e-evaluation of bids and e-allocation of oil and gas fields. Mjunction is a joint venture between Tata Steel and SAIL. 

The e-bidding platform will help in the transparent allocation of natural resources and help reduce India’s oil import bill by up to $8 billion annually according to officials of the petroleum ministry. 

Chakraborty added that for the first round of discovered small field rounds, DGH has already cleared field development plan (FDP) for one block and six more companies have already submitted FDP. "We expect to get the first oil from DSF round by the first quarter of 2020," he said.

He indicated that the future of energy would continue to be oil and gas,  while renewables will also be having a share.