Open Acreage Licensing Program by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
The auction of the seventh round of the Open Acreage Licensing Program (OALP) was launched by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
- The Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) mechanism has been introduced under the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) to promote domestic hydrocarbon production.
- Under the OALP mechanism, investors can choose blocks of their choice by assessing the Exploration and Production (E&P) data available in the National Data Repository (NDR) and submitting Expression of Interest: Eol, without waiting for the government’s formal bidding round. Mining can be done in
- NDR is a unified data repository of E&P data of Indian sedimentary basins.
- Under the seventh round of OALP, bids are being held for eight blocks spread across 6 sedimentary basins. These blocks cover an area of 15,766 sq km in five states.
- The HELP mechanism was implemented in the year 2016 to replace the New Exploration Licensing Policy: NELP.
Importance of HELP in comparison to NELP:
- Revenue sharing model has been adopted instead of profit sharing of ELP.
- NELP provides for a single license for all hydrocarbons instead of a separate license. No royalty will be payable for the initial 7 years in case of deep sea exploration. Subsequently, lower rates of royalty have been applied varying from 2% in offshore exploration at higher depths (ultra-deep offshore) to 12.5% on land. Additional concession in royalty rates has been provided for initial production.
- A simplified dispute resolution mechanism is available under HELP. Freedom of pricing and marketing has been provided in HELP.
Source – The Hindu