India extends OALP-X bid deadline to May 2026 amid rule changes

The government has extended the deadline for submission of bids under India’s largest oil and gas acreage offering for the fourth time, granting potential investors an additional three months, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said on Thursday.

The bid submission closing date for the 10th round of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-X) has now been extended to May 29, 2026 , according to a notification issued by the DGH. The round was launched in February during India Energy Week (IEW) 2025 in New Delhi.

While no official reason was cited for the extension, industry sources said the move is aimed at giving prospective bidders more time to assess the new liberalised exploration and production rules framed after the passage of the Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Amendment Bill.

The deadline had earlier been revised from end-July 2025 to October 31, then to December 31, 2025, and later to February 18, 2026. However, the timelines for the fourth Discovered Small Field (DSF) bid round and the special coal-bed methane (CBM) round remain unchanged at February 18, 2026.

Under OALP-X, the government has offered 25 blocks covering about 1,91,986 square kilometres across 13 sedimentary basins for exploration and production of oil and natural gas, including six onshore blocks, six shallow-water blocks, one deepwater block and twelve ultra-deepwater blocks.

Key locations include acreage in the Andaman basin , Gujarat-Saurashtra offshore basin , and other onshore and offshore sedimentary basins. Four blocks with a combined area of 47,058 sq km are located in the Andaman basin , which Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said could hold reserves comparable to major global discoveries such as Guyana.

The current round represents the largest area ever offered under India’s exploration licensing regime. In the previous nine rounds, a total of 3.78 lakh sq km had been offered. The ninth round (OALP-IX), conducted in September 2024, was the largest before OALP-X, featuring 28 blocks spread across 1.36 lakh sq km.

OALP rounds were introduced after the implementation of the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) in 2016, which replaced the earlier system of government-identified blocks with an open acreage model allowing companies to propose exploration areas themselves. The policy provides incentives such as lower royalty rates , no oil cess , marketing and pricing freedom , and full exploration rights over the contract period .

Blocks are awarded based on the revenue share offered to the government and the work programme committed by bidders.

The government hopes that opening more acreage for exploration will help raise domestic oil and gas output and reduce India’s heavy dependence on imports, which currently cost the country about USD 220 billion annually .

Industry participation in recent rounds has been mixed. OALP-IX attracted four bidders, including state-owned ONGC and Oil India Ltd , and private sector Vedanta Ltd , with most blocks receiving only two bids.

Officials believe the extended timeline under OALP-X could improve participation, especially from global explorers evaluating the regulatory changes and the potential of frontier basins such as the Andaman offshore region.