The government has extended the deadline for submitting bids under the latest oil and gas block auction for the second time, allowing investors more time to participate, according to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). The DGH announced on its website that the bid submission deadline for the 10th round of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-X), the country’s largest acreage offering, has been extended by two months to 31 December 2025. The round, launched in February during India Energy Week 2025 in New Delhi, was initially set to close in July and later extended to October. The extension also applies to the fourth Discovered Small Field (DSF) round and the special coal-bed methane (CBM) round, whose bid deadlines have been moved to 31 December as well. Under OALP-X, 25 blocks covering around 191,986 square kilometres have been offered, including six onshore blocks, six shallow-water tracts, one deepwater block, and 12 ultra-deepwater sites across 13 sedimentary basins. Four of these blocks, totalling 47,058 sq km in the Andaman Basin, have been highlighted by Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri as highly promising, potentially richer in reserves than the oil and gas fields of Guyana. The OALP-X round is the largest exploration offering so far, covering crude oil and natural gas production. These resources are vital for refining fuels like petrol and diesel, generating electricity, producing urea, and supplying compressed natural gas (CNG) for vehicles and households. In the previous nine rounds, a total of 378,000 sq km of exploration area was offered. The OALP-IX round, launched earlier, covered 136,000 sq km across 28 blocks. It attracted bids from major firms such as ONGC, Oil India Ltd, Vedanta Ltd, and a joint bid by Reliance Industries Ltd and BP Plc with ONGC. ONGC secured 11 blocks independently and another three with Oil India, while Vedanta won seven and Oil India obtained six. The ONGC-Reliance-BP consortium also secured a shallow-water block in the Gujarat-Saurashtra basin. The Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP), introduced in 2016 under the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), allows companies to propose areas for exploration instead of waiting for government-identified blocks. The policy offers incentives such as reduced royalty rates, freedom in pricing and marketing, and no oil cess, aiming to attract private and foreign investment. By extending the bid deadlines, the government aims to boost participation and investment, enhancing domestic oil and gas output and reducing India’s USD 220 billion import bill. The areas identified under the policy are offered for bidding twice a year, with firms that propose new areas receiving a five-point advantage. In the first round, Vedanta Ltd secured 41 out of 55 blocks and went on to win another 10 in subsequent rounds, while state-owned firms dominated later phases.