New Delhi: The government today announced it has selected 14 companies for awarding 23 oil and gas blocks under the second round of bidding for rights to develop discovered small fields (DSF).

Billionaire Anil Agarwal-owned Vedanta, state-owned petroleum explorer Oil and Natural gas Corporation (ONGC) and largest fuel retailer Indian Oil (IOC) were among the 14 winning firms.

An Empowered Committee of Secretaries and a Group of Ministers approved awarding the blocks to highest ranked bidders today as part of the DSF Bid Round II.

In the public sector companies, the government has recommended five blocks for ONGC and two blocks for OIL. In the private sector, Ganges Geo Resources is likely to get five blocks; Vedanta, Arch Softwares and Shanti G D Ispat will get two blocks each; while a consortium of IOC and Hindustan Oil Exploration (HOEC) will be awarded a single block.

Bidding under the round started on 9 August 2018 with 25 contract areas on offer covering 59 discovered oil and gas fields. The fields are spread over 3,000 square kilometer with prospective resource base of over 190 million tonne.

The government received 145 bids for 24 Contract Areas. Forty companies had participated in the bid round either individually or as a member of a consortium.

“Six foreign companies also participated in the bidding round. This bid round saw more than anticipated participation from new entrants from India and foreign countries like USA, UK, Australia, Singapore and UAE,” upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH) said in a statement.

The initial bids were opened on 30 January and post evaluation commercial bids were opened on 14 February. Of the 14 companies selected, eight are new entrants in the Exploration and Production sector. Evaluation of a contract area CB/ONDSF/Sanganpur/2018 has been kept in abeyance as the matter is subjudice.

DGH also said the production from areas offered in DSF-I is also likely to start as per contract timelines from 2019-20 onwards.