GUWAHATI, June 25 - The global bidding process for 12 small oilfields in Assam, along with the 55 other fields in other parts of the country, which have been lying undeveloped for years, will start on July 15.
Addressing a press conference here today, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, said that the 67 small fields have reserves of 86 million metric tonne (MMT) worth Rs 70,000 crore, of which the 12 fields located in Assam are estimated to have reserves of 21 MMT worth Rs 17,000 crore.
He was speaking after the interactive session on the Discovered Small Field Bid Round 2016 held to showcase the potential of the fields.
These 67 fields, some discovered 20-30 years back, have been lying undeveloped all these years.
The 12 fields in Assam have been divided in eight clusters.
He said the bidding process will end in December this year and by January 2017 new lessees will be able to start working on the oilfields.
The Minister added that exploiting these small fields required certain technologies and micro-level management skills, which made them unviable for big public sector firms to invest in them and so the fields have remained unexploited over the years. The estimated capital expenditure required to fully exploit these fields would be around Rs 4,000 crore, he added.
Earlier, delivering his plenary address at the interactive session on the Discovered Small Field Bid Round 2016, Pradhan highlighted the need for extensively developing the natural resources of the North East region.
The session was organised to discuss and showcase the potential of the fields being offered as part of the �Discovered Small Fields Bid Round � 2016�. The bid round was launched on May 25 in New Delhi and was followed up by the first interactive session in Mumbai on June 6.
Similar road shows are planned for Bangalore, Dubai, London, Singapore, Houston (US) and Calgary (Canada).
In today�s session, the Minister highlighted that Assam contributed about 10 per cent of the country�s total crude oil and natural gas production and within the present resources available, 44 per cent has been tapped, leaving an opportunity to establish and develop the remaining 56 per cent resource base in the region.
Today�s event was attended by officials from Jubilant, HOEC, GEECL, GeoEnpro, Nippon Power, Eagle Offshore, Jaybee Energy, SKG Global, Cheval Developers, KEI-RSOS, PFH Capital Advisors, Nityam Resources, Siddharth Enterprises, ONGC, OIL, BPCL, BRPL, NRL, AIDC and ICC.
Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) gave a presentation highlighting the features of the Discovered Small Field Round along with the details of the contract areas on offer and the bidding timelines.
Representatives from ONGC and OIL India gave presentations on the infrastructure and facilities available near the offered fields.
Some of the key features of the auction policy include no upfront signature bonus, freedom in oil and gas pricing, no oil cess, custom duty exemption and graded royalty rates. Investors will access information dockets through the e-bidding gateway.
Physical Data Centres with interpretation facility would be set up in the DGH office and other international locations where prospective bidders can access the data.
The bid round marks a shift from the earlier Production Sharing Contract Model to the Revenue Sharing Contract Model, which seeks to provide a uniform single license to investors to explore and extract conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons.
The current bid round aims to augment the domestic oil and gas production in the country as part of the government�s plan to cut imports by up to 10 per cent by 2022.
