Mumbai/Noida, 09th November, 2016: Around six months back, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon’ble Minister, MoPNG, Government of India had launched the Discovered Small Fields (DSF) Bid Round 2016 under a liberal policy regime. The DSF Bid Round offers 67 fields in 46 contract areas across 9 sedimentary basins and is estimated to hold over 625 Million Barrels of Oil and Oil Equivalent Gas in-place, spread over 1,500 square kilometres in Onland, Shallow water and Deepwater areas, for extraction and exploration of oil and gas. These contract areas are offered on Revenue Sharing Model along with attractive features of Marketing and Pricing freedom and Unified licensing policy. Such transformative changes have attracted the oil and gas players not only at the national level but also in the international market. Removal of the technical capability criteria as pre-qualification measure attracts many players from non-E&P and non-oil and gas sector. In fact, this has created a buzz in the Indian start-up industry as well and many start-ups have shown interest in bidding for these fields.
MoP&NG and Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH) has left no stone unturned to sensitize the market in domestic and international arena. Post the launch in May 2016, DGH has organized various interactive meet-cum-roadshow sessions at major oil and gas industry hubs and investments destinations across the world including Mumbai, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Houston, Calgary, Dubai, Singapore, London and Aberdeen.
All these sessions have seen overwhelming response from the market with more than 1300 investors and Industry players, representing more than 500 companies, attending these sessions at various locations. These events have also seen presence of many distinguished officials of embassies, ambassadors and delegations from local governments amongst others. More than 60 one-on-one meetings have also been conducted between senior officials from Government of India (including Hon’ble Minister) and representatives of large companies to discuss market developments and aspects pertaining to the bid round. These meetings have further firmed up the belief of many investors in DSF Bid Round and upcoming Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy(HELP) policy.
Apart from these one on one meetings, multiple roundtable/breakfast meetings, were also organized as part of these interactive meets. These facilitated focused discussions on the bid round and saw enthusiastic participation from potential bidders, financial institutions and other stakeholders.
The industry outreach events conducted so far have witnessed coverage by more than 180 national and foreign media houses such as Platts, Upstream, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Financial Express etc. to name a few.
As the date for the bidding comes closer, the DSF bid round has seen a surge in the interest level of the bidders. More than 470+ individuals from 280+ companies have registered for Technical Information Portal and more than 100 companies blocked their calendars for data viewing at DGH offices. Meanwhile, DGH has undertaken multiple initiatives towards facilitating a smooth bid process for bidders. A dedicated facilitation cell at Noidais available for helping and guiding potential bidders. So far, 450+ queries have been addressed by the cell. DGH recently also organized an Outreach Event in New Delhi with the aim to provide a platform to the interested bidders to interact with other interested companies having complimentary skill sets. The outreach event saw overall participation from more than 235+ delegates and 35+ investors meetings were facilitated.
As part of the hand holding exercise suggested by the Ministry, a ‘Bidder Facilitation Workshop’ was organized on 7 November 2016 to provide a detailed walkthrough of the e-bidding portal Nearly 100 bidders attended the session and over 25 one-on-one meetings were held to resolve queries of the bidders pertaining technical data, contractual matters, bidding process etc. Further, DGH has planned to set up facilitation desks from 8 – 19 November 2016 at their office to offer complete assistance to bidders until the bid submission date.
This DSF Bid round is the first and stepping stone towards the upcoming Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP). From the evident enthusiasm of the bidders and upcoming transformative policies in the oil and gas sector, the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of achieving 10% reduction in crude import may not be a distant dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment