ONGC to win 7, RIL 6 oil, gas blocks

The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation is set to win seven of the 20 oil and gas blocks auctioned in January while Reliance Industries would bag six.

Twenty blocks -- 12 onland, 2 shallow water and six deepwater, were auctioned under New Exploration Licensing Policy round V, for which the bids closed on May 31.

"The directorate general of hydrocarbons, which was assigned the task of techno-economic evaluation of bids, has prepared the list for approval of the empowered committee of secretaries," an official said.

Reliance Industries has been recommended as the winner for two Kerala-Konkan deep sea blocks while the ones in Krishna Godavari basin and Mahanadi basin have been recommended to be awarded to Reliance-Hardy Oil (of UK) and Reliance-Niko Resources (of Canada) consortium, respectively.

ONGC has been suggested winner of the two Andaman basin deepwater blocks -- one on its own and the other in partnership with ENI of Italy and GAIL (India) Ltd.

The official said ONGC came triumph with both the shallow water blocks, winning the Cambay basin block on its own and the Gujarat Saurashtra basin block with Cairn Energy of the United Kingdom.

The consortium of Jubilant Oil, Gujarat State Petroleum Corp and GAIL got two onland blocks in Assam basin while Oil India and Hindustan Petroleum got the third in the basin.

Reliance got the Ganga Valley and Cambay onland block. ONGC with Cairn bagged the Vindhya valley and Krishan Godavari basin onland block while it got one Rajasthan block with ENI and Cairn. The other Rajasthan block went to Phoenix and Birckbeck Investment.