Government to auction 69 fields of ONGC, Oil India to private firms

New Delhi: Government will auction 69 small and marginal oil and gas fields taken away from state-run ONGC and Oil India to private firms on a new revenue sharing model,  offering operators full marketing and pricing freedom. The fields hold 89 million tonne of oil and gas resources  which are worth Rs 70,000 crore at current prices. The 69 fields will be clubbed into clusters and offered for bidding  within 3 months, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.  They will be bid out on the basis of revenue share or the share of oil and gas a bidder offers to government upfront. 

Besides offering minimal interference in operations of  the field, the government will allow companies to sell oil as  well as natural gas produced from these fields at market price  and with no restriction on who they sell the produce to, said Pradhan. 

While oil is priced at global benchmark currently, a  complex international hub based formula determines gas price,  which is roughly half of the rate at which India imports gas.  Pradhan was briefing reports after the Cabinet, headed by  Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved auctioning of the  fields that state-owned firms have surrendered because they  were uneconomical due to size, geography and state-set low  sale prices.  Seeking to revive interest in oil and gas exploration by  simplifying rules, the government will replace the  controversial Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with simpler  revenue-sharing regime.  The new model will replace the current practice of  companies getting blocks by bidding maximum work programme and  then recovering all of their investment before sharing profits  with the government.

This model was criticised by CAG which  said it encouraged companies to keep raising cost so as to  postpone higher share of profits to the government.  In the new regime, the companies will have to indicate  the revenue they will share with the government at different  stages of production as well as at different rates.  "This auction will also usher in a unified licensing  regime which will give operators right to produce both  conventional oil and gas as well as unconventional resources  like shale oil and gas and coal-bed methane (CBM)," he said. 

Presently, a licensing regime governs production of oil  and gas while exploitation of unconventional resources are on  a separate regime. Pradhan said a bid document will be brought out in three  months after which the auction process will begin.  In all Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has 110 small and  marginal oil and gas discoveries in the blocks or areas it got  from government on nomination basis. Of these, the company has  been allowed to retain 47 where some work has been done and  rest have to be surrendered. Oil India Ltd has surrendered all  of its 6 small and marginal discoveries. Of the 69 fields to be auctioned, 36 are offshore and 33  onshore.

"These discoveries could not be monetised for many years   due to various reasons such as isolated locations, small size of reserves, high development costs, technological constraints, fiscal regime etc," Pradhan said.   The fields will be bid out on the basis of revenue share or the share of oil and gas a bidder offers to the government   upfront, and work programme. Companies offering the maximum revenue share or   percentage of oil and gas to the government, and committing to do more work, will win the field.   The weight for revenue share will be 80 per cent while 20 per cent would be for work programme that may include drilling   of exploratory and development wells and seismic studies.  

So far, 254 blocks for exploration and production of oil   and gas have been auctioned in nine rounds of New ExplorationLicensing Policy (NELP) since 1999. These have been on production sharing basis where profit is shared with the   government after recovery of cost.ONGC has surrendered 63 discovered oil and gas fields which it had found uneconomical to develop considering small reserve size and high economic cost as it had to pay for fuel subsidies from the hydrocarbons produced from it. Oil India  Ltd (OIL) has surrendered six such fields. ONGC and OIL have to pay a part of their revenue they  earn from selling oil produced from their fields to help subsidise kerosene. Earlier they had to foot subsidy for  domestic cooking gas (LPG) and diesel as well.  

Sources said that in case ONGC and OIL also decide to bid   and end up winning the fields in the auction, they will not have to pay fuel subsidy on them.