ONGC invites bids from private players to boost production across 43 oil, gas fields

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) has invited bids from private players for its 43 small (oil and gas) fields with an aim to maximise their output. 

The state-run explorer has clustered the fields, with total in-place reserves of 160 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent (mmtoe), into 11 contract areas, for which it has issued a notice inviting offer (NIO), ONGC said in a statement. 

The contract areas, to be awarded through an international competitive bidding (ICB) route, are spread across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu. 

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"Eligible companies (Indian or Foreign), either alone or in consortium with other companies, may bid for one or more contract areas. The bidders are required to fulfil the requisite technical and financial criteria as per the NIO conditions and the bids would be evaluated on the basis of revenue sharing from the incremental production," said the state-run explorer.

The partners, to be selected on revenue sharing basis, will operate the ONGC fields and get a share of the receipts from "the incremental production over and above the baseline output under the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario."

The bids are to be submitted through the company's e-bidding portal by December 3. A pre-bid conference will be held on October 20, the mode and venue for which will be intimated later.

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The contract will be awarded for 15 years, with an option of extending it by five years. The output from the fields will have complete marketing and pricing freedom, ONGC said, adding the royalty will be lowered by 10 per cent on incremental production of natural gas over and above the BAU scenario.

Partners will not be required to share or pay the investments or expenditures incurred by ONGC in the past. They will also have the incentive to "enhance production beyond committed incremental production."