NEW DELHI - From an annual auction of its hydrocarbon blocks, India is moving towards a year-long bidding process, said Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada here Tuesday.

The government of India is moving gradually but inexorably towards the Open Acreage Licensing System from the current New Exploration Licensing Policy, Prasada said at the inauguration of an international conference on National Data Repository (NDR).

The new system would enable bidders to bid for blocks at any time of the year, instead of the present system that allows only a limited time for bidding, he explained.

Data for these blocks would be made available to the bidders through the National Data Repository. Thus, the NDR is expected to play a much larger and significant role in the exploration and production scenario in the years to come.

The minister said the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons has started the process of establishing an NDR that will be cater to the exploration and production sector as well as the academia.

These initiatives are expected to give the much-needed boost to the research and development activities in the country and also help the industry through data integration and knowledge dissemination, Prasada said.

– Indo-Asian News Service