The no-show of oil giants in the recent auction of oil prospecting licenses held in India has been attributed by Director-General of Hydrocarbons VK Sibal to the strength of the country.
The absence of the oil majors like Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips has been attributed to the maturity of Indian companies which refused give in to demands for large share of the production from the blocks.
BP and BG from the UK, Total of France and ENI of Italy, and companies from Malaysia, Myanmar, Australia, Ukraine, and Cyprus took part in the auction.
Though the actual investment could be much larger, the latest auction of prospecting licenses is expected to lead to investment of $8-10 billion, in a worst-case scenario.
The next round of auction blocks are expected to be bigger in scale and the data acquisition process for the blocks has begun with marketing kicking off in December.
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