(ET)
Vedanta has won exploration licenses for 41 of the 55 oil and gas blocks auctioned in the first round of the open acreage licensing policy, with state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp winning barely two. Oil India, another state-run oil producer much smaller than ONGC in revenue, managed to win nine blocks while GAIL, Bharat Petroresources and Hindustan Oil Exploration (HOEC) won one block each.
The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) announced the results. Vedanta had bid for all the 55 blocks on offer and won three-fourths of them, a spectacular success ratio. ONGC had placed bid for 37 blocks but won just two. Oil India competed for 23 blocks in the auction in which a total of 110 bids were received. No foreign player participated in the auction that closed in early May. Domestic heavyweight Reliance Industries too kept out.
