New Delhi, Jan 3 (IANS): Public sector giant Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) won seven of the 10 oil and gas exploration that were put up for bidding on Wednesday as part of the eighth round of Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-VIII).

The Reliance-BP consortium, Oil India Ltd and Sun Petrochemicals Pvt Ltd bagged exploration rights to one block each.

OALP-IX Bid Round was also launched at the event. In this bid round, 28 blocks, with an area of approximately 1,36,596 sq. km., are on offer for bidding, the minister said. Parallelly, three coal-bed methane (CBM) blocks too were awarded and the ninth round of OALP was launched for bidding.

"Estimated investments in awarded blocks for a committed exploration work programme is to the tune of $233 million," according to an official statement.

Five companies -- ONGC, Vedanta Ltd, Oil India Ltd (OIL), Sun Petrochemicals Pvt Ltd and Reliance-BP Exploration (Alpha) Ltd -- put in 13 bids for the 10 blocks on offer in OALP-VIII, according to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH).

ONGC was the sole bidder for six blocks while Reliance-BP was the sole bidder for the ultradeep sea block in Krishna Godavari basin, according to the DGH.

Addressing the event, Puri said that Wednesday's signing ceremony for OALP-VIII & SCBM-2022 and Launch of OALP-IX Bid Round is a crucial step in ensuring India's energy security.

He said that vast offshore acreage of more than 1 million sq. km. has been made available in recent past for E&P operations which were earlier so called 'No-Go' areas. Currently, only 10 per cent of Indian Sedimentary Basin Area is under active exploration, however, with the initiatives of government, more areas will come under exploration and it is estimated that after award of blocks under forthcoming OALP-IX and X Bid Rounds, about 5,60,000 sq. km. area (16 per cent) will come under exploration by end of year 2024, the minister added.