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Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday launched the 10th round of bidding for Oil and Gas under the Open Acreage Licencing Policy (OALP) at the India Energy Summit 2025.
In continuation of the accelerated Exploration and Production activities and adhering to the prescribed timelines, the minister announced the OALP Bid Round-X. This is the largest bid round in terms of acreage offered in a single OALP bid round under the HELP regime. In this bid round, 25 blocks covering an area of approximately 1,91,986.21 sq. km. are on offer for bidding to investors. The Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) Bid Round-X includes 25 blocks spread across 13 sedimentary basins, covering a total area of 1,91,986.21 sq. km. Notably, 16 blocks, accounting for 97,919.6 sq. km. (51%), fall within areas previously designated as 'No-Go' zones. Out of the 25 blocks, 6 are in Onland, 6 in Shallow Water, 1 in Deep Water, and 12 in Ultra Deep-Water regions. The blocks are further classified into Category-I (9 blocks), Category-II (11 blocks), and Category-III (5 blocks) basins, based on geological and resource potential.This bid round is primarily an offshore-focused round, with 19 offshore blocks covering 1,75,115 sq. km. Among these, 13 blocks fall within deep water and ultra-deepwater areas, spanning 1,33,724 sq. km. Additionally, for OALP Round X, a new e-bidding portal has been introduced to enhance transparency and security, along with features designed to improve ease of doing business for investors. Minister Puri said, "We are going to launch the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) round 10. The thrust of the opening ministerial session was to make the transition. You will need to make the transition because you will have to survive the present. So you will need gas, traditional energy, fossil fuels. We are going to have more and more refining capacity added." He added, "India's average consumption is 1/3rd of the global average. Our biofuel story is a very interesting one. Our basic feed of what we sell at the dispensing station already has a 19 per cent mix in it. The overall trend I see is global demand for energy will keep rising. We need to move on the gas front in a very major way. We have already got a long-term agreement with Qatar till 2048." Open Acreage Licensing Programme has been launched under HELP which provides investors the freedom to carve out blocks of their choice through submission of Expression of Interest (EoI). The first bidding round under OALP was launched in January 2018 wherein 55 blocks were awarded. The government, from 2016 has brought in several changes to enhance exploration of oil and gas blocks in the country and auction it by launching Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy. This was done in its attempt to increase domestic production of oil and natural gas while reducing the country's dependency on imports. (ANI)
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