Bids start next week for petroleum exploration

India has 26 sedimentary basins covering an area of 3.14 million square km

With the new year, the recently begun Open Acreage Licensing (OAL) regime for the oil and gas sector will enter an interesting phase, with major companies expected to bid for blocks where other entities have already shown interest.

Big players stayed away from the first stage, of putting in an Expression of Interest (EoI). In this stage, 57 EoIs came, of which state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and Vedanta had put 41. Interest was shown in new basins — Ganga, Himalayan Foreland, Kutch, Saurashtra.  

"In the second stage, starting January 4, bids will be invited from all players for those