Government extends OALP-X bid deadline to May 2026 for fourth time

The government has extended the deadline for submitting bids under India’s largest oil and gas acreage offering for a fourth time, giving prospective investors an additional three months to participate, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) has said.

The Hindu reported that according to a notice on the DGH website, the bid submission deadline for the 10th round of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-X) has now been pushed to 29 May 2026. No official reason was provided for the extension, though industry sources said it was intended to allow companies more time to assess newly liberalised rules introduced after the passage of the Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Amendment Bill.

Launched in February during India Energy Week 2025 in New Delhi, OALP-X was originally scheduled to close at the end of July. The deadline was subsequently extended to 31 October, then to 31 December 2025, and later to 18 February 2026, before the latest extension was announced.

In contrast, the bid deadline for the fourth round of Discovered Small Fields (DSF) and the special coal-bed methane (CBM) round remains unchanged at 18 February 2026.

Under OALP-X, a total of 25 blocks covering nearly 192,000 square kilometres have been offered for exploration and production of oil and gas. The acreage includes six onshore blocks, six shallow-water areas, one deepwater block and 12 ultra-deepwater blocks spread across 13 sedimentary basins.

The round also features four blocks in the Andaman basin, covering more than 47,000 sq km. Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has previously said the basin could potentially hold reserves larger than those discovered in Guyana, one of the world’s most prominent recent exploration successes.

OALP-X represents the largest acreage ever offered under India’s exploration framework. By comparison, a total of 378,000 sq km was put up for bidding across the previous nine rounds. The immediate predecessor, OALP-IX, offered 28 blocks spanning about 136,000 sq km and was the biggest round before the current one.

India introduced the Open Acreage Licensing Policy in 2016 as part of the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), replacing the earlier system in which the government selected and auctioned exploration blocks. Under OALP, companies are free to identify prospective areas themselves, which are then pooled and offered for bidding twice a year. Firms that identify areas receive a five-point advantage in the bidding process.

HELP offers several incentives, including reduced royalty rates, concessional royalties for early production, the removal of oil cess, exploration rights over the full contract life, and freedom in marketing and pricing.

The most recent bidding round, OALP-IX, attracted limited competition, with four bidders including state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Oil India Ltd (OIL) and private-sector Vedanta Ltd. Most blocks received only two bids. ONGC emerged as the largest winner, securing 11 blocks on its own and three more in partnership with OIL, while Vedanta won seven blocks and OIL the remaining six.

The government has been hoping that opening up larger areas for exploration will boost domestic oil and gas output and help reduce India’s annual oil import bill, estimated at around $220 billion. However, repeated deadline extensions suggest investor caution amid regulatory changes and global market uncertainty.