Three oil and gas players – BP Exploration (Alpha), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) – have joined forces to embark on hydrocarbon exploration activities at a block off the coast of India, which was acquired in the country’s ninth oil and gas bid round.
The trio has now entered into a joint operating agreement (JOA) for Block GS-OSHP-2022/2 located off the western coast in the Saurashtra basin. The companies got their hands on the asset as part of India’s hydrocarbon exploration and licensing policy.
Thanks to the JOA, BP, ONGC, and Reliance will pursue oil and gas exploration operations at this block. India is actively working on boosting its hydrocarbon output, as confirmed by a deal ONGC awarded to BP to tackle the decline in production levels at a giant oil field off the country’s west coast.
The Asian nation’s oil giant is set on increasing domestic oil and gas production. To this end, the firm held a flag-off ceremony last year for the first crude oil offtake from a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) working at Krishna Godavari .
This is perceived as the first deepwater development in India, which was achieved a couple of months after the company confirmed the first oil from the KG-DWN-98/2 deepwater block off the coast of the Bay of Bengal.
India is also holding bid rounds to stimulate hydrocarbon exploration. ONGC emerged as the top overall bidder in the ninth round of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-IX) on September 21, 2024, as it had bid for 14 blocks individually, four alongside Oil India and Indian Oil Corporation, and one with Reliance and BP.
This represents 19 out of 28 available blocks for which Vedanta bid, while Sun Petrochemicals only submitted seven bids. In the aftermath of the bid round, ONGC and its partners secured 15 blocks on offer, Vedanta won seven, and Oil India six.
Another bid round, OALP-X, for 25 blocks covering over 1,91,986.21 square kilometers is currently underway and will end on July 31. This round encompasses six onshore, six shallow-water, one deep-water, and 12 ultra-deepwater blocks.