Auction of Hydrocarbon Blocks Under India's HELP May Not Happen Before January
Auction of oil and gas blocks under India’s Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) may not happen before January next year, reported Businessline, a financial daily.
The oil ministry wants to be fully prepared with data as well as new bid contract structure before launching the process.
In March this year, India announced a new hydrocarbon exploration policy. The cabinet also announced a policy for future which provides for a uniform licensing system to cover all hydrocarbons such as oil, gas, coal bed methane, shale gas, shale oil, etc. under a single licensing framework, Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP). The government believes the new policy regime will mark a generational shift and modernization of the oil and gas exploration policy. It is expected to stimulate new exploration activity for oil, gas and other hydrocarbons and eventually reduce import dependence.
“HELP requires a lot of data in the National Data Repository. The work is almost 80-90 per cent complete. Once the discovered small fields auction is complete, we will complete the work for the data required for HELP,” Atanu Chakraborty, Director General, Directorate General of Hydrocarbons told Businessline.
According to the newspaper, both government officials and industry analysts agree that the success of HELP depends on the quality and depth of data about the hydrocarbon potential in the country.
“We are in the final stages of preparing the bid structure. There are still a few things we need to understand about the new model,” Chakraborty told BusinessLine.
HELP provides for revenue sharing contract and proposes to give contractors marketing and pricing freedom for the crude oil and natural gas produced.
India has also kicked off the process to invite bids for small oil and gas fields under the Discovered Small Field Policy on May 25. Under the Discovered Small Field Policy, the government is offering 67 discovered small oil and gas fields clubbed into 46 contract areas spread over nine sedimentary basins in onland, shallow water and deep water areas for bidding which have known hydrocarbon discoveries.