India’s Hydrocarbon Outlook 2024 157 A Report on Exploration & Production Activities Sl. No. States No. of Live* CAs under DSF regime No of PML's granted/ Active CAs PML Awaited Area of Granted PML 1 Mumbai Offshore 16 16 6285.1 2 Assam 11 11 779.9 3 Gujarat 8 8 391.4 4 KG Offshore 8+1** 8 1563.5 5 Cambay Offshore 2 2 801.2 6 Andhra Pradesh 10 3 7 139.7 7 Tamil Nadu 3 0 3 0.0 8 Rajasthan 3 3 167.0 9 Arunanchal Pradesh 1 0 1 0.0 10 Madhya Pradesh 1 0 1 0.0 11 Tripura 1 1 47.2 12 Kutch Offshore 2 2 2092.3 13 Mahanadi Offshore 1 1 541.4 Grand Total 68 55 12 12808.7 Table 6.8: State-wise status of PML granted to the Operators of DSF Blocks * Awarded Contract Areas excluding the Terminated/Relinquished Blocks. ** PML not yet applied. HYDROCARBON EXPLORATION AND LICENCING POLICY (HELP) The Government of India approved transformative licensing policy called a Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) on 30th March 2016 for the award of exploration acreages to boost the Indian E&P Sector. Which led shift from Production Sharing mechanism to Revenue Sharing mechanism. It was a giant step towards improving the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in the Indian Exploration and Production (E&P) sector as Government does not interfere in day-to-day business activities of Contractor. The Government of India introduced the Open Acreage Licensing (OAL) mechanism as a part of the HELP which gives exploration companies the option to select the exploration blocks on their own, without having to wait for the formal bid round from the Government. The first OALP Bid Round, under HELP, was launched by the Government in January 2018. In a Six (6) year period, Eight OALP bid rounds have been concluded with the award of 144 exploration blocks covering 2,42,057 sq. km. area for E&P activities. Policy Reform HELP comes with attractive and liberal terms like reduced royalty rates, no oil cess, marketing and pricing freedom, freedom to investors for carving out blocks of their interest, a single license to cover both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources, exploration permission during the entire contract period, and an easy, transparent and swift bidding and awarding process.
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