45 BIDS RECEIVED FOR 23 NELP-III BLOCKS
SIGNING OF CONTRACTS TO BE
COMPLETED IN 18 WEEKS
Shri
Ram Naik, Minister (P&NG) announced that
45 bids had been received for 23 blocks
under the third round of NELP (NELP-III) by the bid closing date
of 28.8.2002. In addition, bids for 7 blocks were received from
one company namely Rajan Petroleum, which was found prima-facie
invalid as the company had
not purchased information dockets/data packages. Out of 27 blocks
on offer, bids have been received for 8 onland blocks, 6 shallow
water offshore blocks and 9 deepwater blocks. The
onland blocks fall in the States of Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland,
Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.
11 companies have submitted their bids out of which ONGC, OIL,
IOC, GAIL, RIL, GSPC and Jubiliant Enpro
India Limited are domestic companies and Cairn Energy, U.K. (along
with other subsidiaries), Premier Oil,
U.K., Hardy Exploration and Production, U.K. and Geo Global Resources
(India) Limited, Canada are foreign companies.
Amongst
foreign companies Premier Oil and Geo Global Resources have bid
for the first time under NELP. 18 blocks attracted multiple bids,
whereas 6 blocks attracted single bids. In NELP-III about 67%
blocks attracted multiple bids as compared to around 50% blocks
attracting multiple bids in NELP-I and NELP-II. With this contracts
for 47 blocks have been signed under the first two rounds and
now offers received for 23 blocks in the third round of NELP as
compared to only 27 blocks in the previous ten years. The details
of the bids received for NELP-III are given in the Annexure.
Government
of India had undertaken a comprehensive promotional exercise to
promote the blocks through five road-shows at New Delhi, Singapore,
London, Houston and Calgary and through exclusive NELP-III IndigoPool
website. During the road-shows as well as on the web-site, the
response of investors was quite encouraging, inspite of the apprehensions
expressed regarding Indo-Pakistan border tensions and travel advisories
issued by certain countries. These apprehensions of the investors
were sought to be allayed during the road-shows and one-to-one
meetings.
Shri
Naik said that the response under NELP-III was comparable to that
for NELP-II despite the intermittent tensions along the Indo-Pak
border leading to disquiet among investors. He further said that
improvement in the investment promotion is an ongoing process
with past experience being factored into the next round in terms
of improving bid documents and data packages. He emphasised the
importance of continuous promotion of India’s acreages keeping
in view the long-term perspective of investors, the opportunities
for companies to "farm-in" into NELP blocks after discoveries,
and the need to maintain India as an important investment
destination in the upstream sector.
Shri
Naik said that as done for NELP I & II the evaluation and
award of the bids would be completed in about ten weeks and the
contracts signed in another eight weeks. Thus the entire bidding
process would be completed in about eighteen weeks (4 ½ months)
time as against 2-3 years taken prior to the NELP rounds.
Shri
Naik mentioned that preparations for NELP-IV are in an advanced
stage and he expected that it would be announced around the first
quarter of 2003-04.
Click here for Details
of the bids received under NELP-III
