Ministry of Oil invites bids for third round of DSF-III

Minister of Oil Hardeep Singh Puri opened the bid phase of the third round of Discovered Small Fields (DSF-III) on July 30. Puri invited foreign investors like ExxonMobil and BP to explore massive potentials proposed by Asia's third-largest economy's hydrocarbon sector. In early July, Puri took charge of the oil ministry from the former minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who had been in the ministry duty for seven years. India proposed thirty-two contract areas for seventy-five oil and gas fields in nine sedimentary basins, including over 13,000 sq km in the DSF-III round. Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, the upstream regulator of India, opened data for fields on June 10 offered under the latest round for evaluation. The regulator fixed August 31 as the deadline for the bids. The oil ministry officials told the media that the fields would be awarded to the bidders who are successful by December. The discovered fields that are proposed cover 2 in deepwater, 19 on-land fields and 54 in shallow water. These fields together are expected to hold oil and gas reserves of around 230 million mt of oil equivalent, or 1.7 billion boe. The gas output in India is predicted to be 2.91 billion cu m, while the oil production in India is set to be 1.32 million mt by 2024-25 from the contracts allocated in the previous two DSF rounds. To meet its domestic oil demand, India depends 85% on imports. The world's third-biggest crude importer and consumer, India, was pursuing a policy to promote domestic oil and gas production for the past seven years through a host of investor-friendly policy initiatives whose objective is to cut its import dependence to meet energy demand. Image Source Also read: Govt aims speedy clearance of exploration activities