(T.E.T)
The government has received 10 bids for eight oil and gas blocks it offered in the latest bidding round, with just two bids from the private sector. ONGC has placed five bids while Oil India and Sun Petrochemicals have placed two bids each and GAIL one, as per the website of the Directorate General of Hydrogen (DGH), which oversees exploration licensing rounds.
The latest round is the seventh under the new exploration policy launched in 2016, which permits explorers to carve out their own blocks and inform the DGH about it. Such blocks are then aggregated every four months and auctioned Of the eight blocks on offer in the seventh round, six blocks would go to bidders – three to ONGC, two to Oil India and one to GAIL – without contest. For two blocs, ONGC will compete with Sun Petrochemicals. Even the sixth round witnessed the dominance of state-run players and limited contests. Only three of the 21 blocks on offer in the sixth round saw competition, with the balance 18 receiving single bids. Here again, the contest was between ONGC and Sun Petrochemicals in all three blocks. Of the 24 bids received in the sixth round, 19 came from ONGC, three from Sun Petrochemicals and two from Oil India.
