India hopes to award oil and gas blocks under NELP-IX by March

India hopes to award exploration and production rights for oil and gas blocks, auctioned during the ninth round of bidding under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), by the end of the current financial year.

The NELP-IX auction of 34 exploration blocks, launched on 15 October 2010, received bids from 37 companies, Sudhir Bhargava, additional secretary in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, said today.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the two-day conference to announce the third India-Africa Hydrocarbons Conference starting 9 December.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has bagged 10 of the 33 oil and gas exploration blocks that received bids at the close of the ninth licensing round, which saw a tepid response with global energy majors staying away.

ONGC, which bid with firms like Oil India Ltd (OIL) for as many as 29 blocks, managed to get 10 for the NELP-IX round.

Bhargava attributed the delay in the award of contracts to both procedural and policy decisions.

''There were security issues with some of the blocks, which should be resolved soon. We hope, by March, blocks offered in NELP IX will be awarded,'' he said.

Meanwhile, minister of state for petroleum and natural gas R P N Singh, speaking on the sidelines of the conference said ''the delays in Reliance-BP and Cairn-Vedanta deal is more a matter of procedural requirements and not delay per se.