ONGC bags most blocks

State-run ONGC bagged over a third of the blocks in muted bidding for India's largest ever auction of oil and gas areas -- a response the government attributed to the global slowdown and the Ambani gas dispute.

Reliance Industries, which bid for just two blocks in the previous round, did not bid for any oil and gas blocks and made a largely symbolic bid for one coal bed methane block.

Of the 70 blocks offered in the 8th round of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), only 36 attracted bids with ONGC and partners bidding for a maximum 25. They won 11 offshore including six deepwater and two onland areas.

Eight of the 10 coal bed methane (CBM) blocks that were offered simultaneously attracted 26 bids. Deep Industries got seven, including one by edging out RIL in a Jharkhand block, while Essar Oil that bid for six managed just one.

Oil Secretary R S Pandey described the response as "good" saying globally the economic slowdown and credit crunch has seen poorer response. Hydrocarbon rich nations like Brazil could manage bids for only 54 out of the 130 blocks offered while Algeria awarded only four out of 15 areas offered.

He refuted Anil Ambani Group's allegations that his ministry's interference in marketing of gas was responsible for the poor response. "Since NELP-I, the kind of marketing freedom or the lack of it has been broadly the same."

Oil regulator DGH V K Sibal, without naming Anil Ambani Group, said the legal challenge to government's role in gas utilisation and pricing under the Production Sharing Contract had sent wrong signals to investors.

"The (gas) utilisation policy and the pricing are very well clarified in our PSC which is best in the world, but these have been, regrettably, openly challenged," Sibal said.

"This sent wrong signal across the world," he said without naming the Anil Ambani group, which has challenged the government's right to decide on commercial utilisation of gas and approve pricing of the same.

Anil-run RNRL is seeking to enforce a 2005 family pact requiring elder brother Mukesh-headed RIL to supply gas from its KG-D6 field to a plant in Uttar Pradesh at a price 44 per cent lower than government-approved USD 4.20 per mmBtu rate.

The Supreme Court is to start hearing on the matter from 20^th October.

"We have done better than many," Pandey said, adding that Uruguay this year got bids for just two of the 11 blocks offered, Indonesia got bids for five out of 16 blocks offered, Iceland could not award a single block while Norway managed bids for 35 out of 67 areas offered.

"Now we will process it. In all of three months, the process of finalising the award will be completed," he said.

Anil Ambani group, however, attributed the tame response to the Oil Ministry's "open interference by curtailing marketing and pricing freedom".

Only four foreign firms including BHP Biliton of Australia, BG Group and Cairn Energy Plc of UK bid for offshore blocks while Arrow Energy of Australia was notable overseas player in the CBM rounds.