Government of India signs Contracts awarded under Discovered Small Field Bid Round 2016

The Government of India, today, signed the contracts of the fields awarded under the Discovered Small Field (DSF) Bid Round 2016 with the awardees at New Delhi. The event was presided by Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan. The delegation of Shri Pradhan included the Shri K D Tripathi, Secretary for Petroleum and Natural Gas and other senior officials of the Ministry.

The Minister also inaugurated a 2 way Interactive Portal for DSF in line with Ease of Doing Business (which is available at www.dghindia.gov.in/dsfportal) which has been developed by DGH to facilitate contract management and redressal of queries.

Addressing the gathering, the Minister said the DSF was introduced with an objective to take a strong step forward towards our Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of reducing India’s energy imports, by 10% by 2022. He said that the DSF bid round, which completed in a short span of time, helped us pilot several new initiatives such as the implementation of e-bidding system, an interactive mobile app, setup of virtual data center, facility of dedicated facilitation cell, conducting bidder facilitation workshops etc.

The Minister said that the cumulative peak production from the awarded fields is expected to be around 15000 BOPD of oil and 2 MMSCMD of gas over the economic life. The estimated total revenue would be approximately Rs. 46,400 crores, of which royalty collection and Government’s revenue share is expected to be around Rs. 5,000 crores and Rs. 9,300 crores, respectively. It is also estimated that employment for ~37,500 persons would be generated through the awarded fields.

“In the face of a global oil glut, and oil prices at half their level three years ago, we took a bet with this bidding round for hydrocarbon assets, thereby exemplifying the boldness that is now the face of business in India. Not just that, the overall response that we received from the bid round, even from bidders who could not succeed, has been nothing short of outstanding”, the Minister added.

The Minister also mentioned that the Government is now working towards a second round of DSF Bidding, and shall also be rolling out the Hydrocarbons Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) through the Open Acreage Licensing (OAL) mechanism shortly, which shall provide good opportunity for more E&P investment.

Shri Pradhan congratulated the awardees and assured them of complete support and assistance from the Government. He also appreciated the efforts of the officials and partner organizations for the successful completion of the bid round.

Recently, the Petroleum Minister along with Minister of State (I/C) for Cpmmerce and Industry, Smt Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, Shri Pon. Radhakrishnan met the delegation of representatives from Neduvasal Village of Tamil Nadu regarding their concerns on exploration in that area. The Ministers assured the delegation that the work on the field wills start when Government of Tamil Nadu addresses the local concerns in consultation with Central Government.

The Signing of Contract was attended by the successful awardees, E&P majors, Service Companies amongst others.

The details of the contracts signed are placed at Annexure 1.

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RG

Annexure 1 – Details of the contracts signed under the Discovered Small Field Bid Round

*Likely to sign