Vedanta Ltd., the Indian subsidiary of Vedanta Resources of London, dominated block awards in India’s first open-access licensing round (OGJ, Jan. 19, 2018).
The company, the oil and gas operations of which comprise Cairn India’s assets, received 41 of the 55 awards by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons.
Blocks were offered in response to expressions of interest from operators. License terms are revenue-sharing.
Vedanta received seven blocks in Rajasthan, where Cairn India operates Mangala, Bhagyam, Aishwariya, and satellite oil fields.
It also received nine blocks in the Cambay basin; seven in the Assam Shelf basin; five in the Krishna-Godavari basin; four in the Assam-Arakan Foldbelt basin; two each in the Cauvery, Saurashtra, and Kutch basins; and one each in the Mumbai Offshore, Ganga-Punjab, and Himalayan Foreland basins.
State-owned Oil India Ltd. received awards for six blocks in the Assam Shelf basin, two in Rajasthan, and one in the Assam-Arakan Foreland basin.
State-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp. received one block each in the Cauvery and Mumbai Offshore basins.
Awarded one block each were state-owned Bharat PetroResources Ltd. (Cambay basin), state-owned GAIL (India) Ltd. (Cambay basin), and private Hindustan Oil Exploration Co. Ltd. (Assam-Arakan Foreland basin).
