60 more discovered fields to be auctioned to pvt firms

The government will offer 60 more discovered oil and gas fields, holding 195 million tonnes of reserves, in the second auction round this year, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today.
Pradhan said the Cabinet last evening approved the second round of Discovered Small Fields (DSF) auction with a view to quickly put the fields into production to help cut India's dependence on imports to meet its energy needs.
Out of the 60 fields, 22 fields belong to state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and 5 were discovered by Oil India Ltd (OIL). These fields had been taken away from the two firms for not developing them for various reasons including uneconomical size.

A dozen fields to be offered in DSF-II were relinquished fields/discoveries from blocks offered in bids rounds under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) since 1999, an official statement said.
The remaining 21 are fields that did not receive any bid in the DSF first round last year.
Pradhan said the exact auction dates would be worked out keeping in mind the bidding that is already open under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP).

The 60 discoveries are estimated to have 194.65 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas in place.
"These fields will be developed and monetised faster, thereby augmenting production of oil and gas leading to enhance energy security of the country," the statement said.

Investments into these fields will lead to generation of over 88,000 jobs as direct, indirect and induced employment, it said.
Empowered Committee of Secretaries (ECS) comprising Secretary (Petroleum and Natural Gas), Secretary (Expenditure) and Law Secretary will finalise and approve Model Revenue Sharing Contract, Notice Inviting Offer (NIO) and other documents for Discovered Small Fields Bid Round-ll.
The award of contract will be approved by the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Finance based on the recommendations of ECS.
In the first round, contracts for 31 fields were signed last year. The fields signed off in first round envisage a cumulative peak production of around 15,000 barrels per day of oil and 2 millions standard cubic meters of gas.