ONGC gets lion’s share of Nelp IX pie

A number of new players have bagged oil and gas blocks under the ninth round of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (Nelp IX) even as established players such as Cairn Energy have gone without a block.

The share of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), India’s largest upstream company, has also come down. The company has won 10 blocks, even as Oil India Ltd (OIL), another state-owned company, won three. Together, the two had bid for 29 blocks.

In the last round of Nelp, ONGC had won almost two-thirds of the blocks on offer along with OIL.

Reliance Industries, which had not bid for any block in the previous NELP round in 2009, has won two of the six blocks it bid for.
Deep Industries, which had won a block in the South Rewa Basin in Chhattisgarh under Nelp VII, has won four blocks.

Lesser known Sankalp Oil and Natural Resources and Ishar Gas Oil have won three blocks each.

Chinmar Commerce has bagged two blocks.

Pratibha Oil and Natural Gas, Pan India Consultant, Focus Energy, Essar and Prize Petroleum have got one each.

UK-based British Gas, too, has managed to bag a block.
A total of 37 companies bid for 33 of the 34 blocks on offer. Of these, 19 blocks received multiples bids, while 14 blocks received single bids. One offshore block did not receive any bid.

Nineteen of the 34 blocks are fresh, while the rest are recycled. Of the recycled blocks, five are discards of ONGC.

Somewhat disappointingly for the government, which was expecting bigger participation from foreign companies after British Petroleum’s $7.2 billion deal last month to acquire 30% stake in 23 blocks of RIL, Nelp IX saw just two foreign companies put in bids.