The Government of India (GoI) has recently signed the contracts of the fields awarded under the Discovered Small Field (DSF) Bid Round 2016 with the awardees at New Delhi. Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan presided over the meeting, where he was accompanied by his team of delegates including Mr. K. D. Tripathi, Secretary for Petroleum and Natural Gas and other senior officials of the ministry. In the same event Mr. Pradhan also inaugurated a two-way Interactive Portal for DSF in line with Ease of Doing Business. The interactive portal www.dghindia.gov.in/dsfportal has been developed by DGH to facilitate contract management and redressal of queries.
While addressing the gathering, Mr. Pradhan explained that the DSF was introduced with an objective to take a strong step forward towards respected Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi’s vision of reducing India’s energy imports, by 10% by 2022. He also highlighted that the DSF bid round, which completed in a short span of time, helped in piloting several new initiatives – such as the implementation of e-bidding system, an interactive mobile app, set up of a virtual data center, facility of dedicated facilitation cell, conducting bidder facilitation workshops etc.
According to the Petroleum and Natural Gas minister, the cumulative peak production from the awarded fields is expected to be around 15,000 BOPD of oil and 2 MMSCMD of gas over the economic life. The estimated total revenue would be approximately Rs. 46,400 crores, of which royalty collection and government’s revenue share is expected to be around Rs. 5,000 crores and Rs. 9,300 crores respectively. The awarded fields will also generate employment for about 37,500 persons.
GoI is now working towards a second round of DSF Bidding, and will also be rolling out the Hydrocarbons Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) through the Open Acreage Licensing (OAL) mechanism shortly, which shall provide good opportunity for more E&P investment.