The Government of India has opened the Discovered Small Field Policy (DSFC) bid round-II covering 25 discovered oil and gas reserves that are reportedly worth Rs1tn ($14.46bn).
The bidding round has been launched by the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan. It will commence next month and is open until December this year.
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Approximately Rs450bn ($6.50bn) are expected in royalties, taxes and profit petroleum during the life of the fields. It is also estimated the DSFC-II 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 and 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 first oil and 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.
