Govt invites bids for 27 oil, gas blocks

new delhi: the government on wednesday put on offer 27 blocks for exploration of oil and gas under the third round of new exploration licensing policy. it also said maximum weight of 60 per cent would be given for work programme commitment — indicating how many wells would be dug, etc, in a committed time interval — during bid evaluation. making a departure from the policy so far, petroleum minister ram naik said this time the evaluation parameters were being announced in the notice inviting offers to make the entire bidding process more transparent. the financial package proposed in the bid could get a maximum weightage of 30 per cent, while technical capability would be given 6 per cent and financial strength of the bidding company or consortium 4 per cent. bids for these 27 blocks including five completely new ones — two of which are in the oil rich krishna-godavari basin — would be invited tomorrow and close on august 28, 2002, giving prospective bidders about five month to evaluate the blocks on offer. the 27 blocks on offer include 11 onland ones in andhra pradesh, assam, bihar, gujarat, himachal pradesh, madhya pradesh, mizoram, nagaland, rajasthan, tripura and west bengal. of the remaining blocks on the offer are nine are in deep water and seven in shallow water along the east and west coasts. the petroleum ministry has also slightly revised the model production sharing contract to make the clauses, particularly those pertaining to prospecting, more clear. mr naik said that ap, bihar, hp, mp, mizoram and nagaland were participating in the nelp for the first time.the government has so far signed 47 contract under the two rounds of nelp. these include 39 offshore and 8 onland blocks. the estimated expenditure in these 47 blocks covering the three exploration phases is about rs 9,300 crore.