New Delhi - August 14 - Neftegaz.RU. India has launched the 2nd round of bidding for small discovered fields, estimated to contain as much as $14 billion worth of oil and gas reserves.
The bidding round has been launched by the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan. It will commence next month and is open until December this year. Approximately $6.50 billion are expected in royalties, taxes and profit petroleum during the life of the fields. It is also estimated the DSFC-II (Discovered Small Field Policy) will generate 85,000 jobs.
For the DSFC round-II, 59 discovered small fields have been placed under 25 contract areas that are said to be spread over 3,042km² and eight sedimentary basins. Initially, the government announced intentions to club 60 oil and gas reserves into 26 contract areas spread over 3,100km² but later trimmed down the offer.
DSFC was originally launched in 2016 to extract oil & natural gas from the un-monetised small oil/gas discoveries that are available across the country. The DSFC round-I involved 134 bids for 34 blocks on offer, and 30 contracts were granted to 20 companies. India expects 1st oil & gas from the DSFC-I in 2019 or 2020.
A statement from the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas said: «Encouraged with the success of bid round-I, and looking at the massive interest from industry, especially from the private sector; the government is now to rolling out DSFC bid round-II, which is offering larger field areas in commercially producing basins.»
The government hopes that the larger field areas will enhance the private sector interest.
