India to award oil, gas blocks under NELP-IX by March

India is likely to award exploration and production rights for oil and gas blocks, auctioned during the ninth round of bidding under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), by March next year.

The NELP-IX auction of 34 exploration blocks, launched on 15 October 2010, received bids from 37 companies.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has bagged 10 of the 33 oil and gas exploration blocks that received bids at the close of the ninth licensing round.

Officials attributed the delay in the award of contracts to both procedural and policy decisions.