(Auto World)
India will offer larger areas with higher oil and natural gas reserves in the next auction of discovered fields later this year as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government seeks to curtail rising crude oil imports.
“The next round would be meatier, bigger and players can expect even better fields,” Atanu Chakraborty, head of oil regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, said in an interview. “The reserves are twice of that we offered in the first auction round, on a very conservative estimate.”India last year offered 67 small oil and gas fields holding about 625 million barrels of reserves in its first auction in six years allowing new entrants such as drugmakers and engineering companies to try their hand at boosting local production.
The government also relaxed rules by allowing pricing freedom for oil and gas and a uniform policy for extraction of all hydrocarbons under a single license to encourage investments.
