Oil production from newly auction areas to start by '21

Hyderabad: Twenty two companies, who were awarded 30 contracts in the round-1 bidding of Discovered Small Fields (DSF), are expected to start their oil production by 2020-21, a top official said on Wednesday.

“In March 2017, we signed the contracts with 23 companies for the round 1 bidding of the DSF. According to the field plans that we have received so far, we are hopeful that by 2020-21 all fields including the offshore ones will be able to start their production. The onshore fields, however, are likely to start earlier,” the director-general of hydrocarbons Atanu Chakraborty told the media on the sidelines of a ministry of petroleum and gas conference.

The second round of the DSF, which will have 60 blocks for bidding, will have a larger land area following feedback. Among the challenges that hurt DSF-I include isolated places and technical issues.

“Smaller areas (in DSF-I) didn’t help as it was not optimal technically. So we proposed to increase the land area in DSF-II,” Mr Chakraborty said.

When asked about the response for the 55 gas and oil blocks under the Open Acerage Licensing Policy (OALP), he said that he was hopeful about a good response.

However, he hinted at extending the deadline for the OALP due to the holidays in March-end. “We may consider extending the date by about 15 days.”