Five companies put in 13 bids

New Delhi State-owned ONGC, mining baron Anil Agarwal's Vedanta and a consortium of Reliance Industries Ltd and BP Plc put in 13 bids for 10 areas offered for finding and producing crude oil and natural gas in India's latest bid round, according to regulator DGH.

India offered 10 blocks for bidding in the eighth round of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) in July last year. After extending the bid deadline a few times, the round closed last week. Five companies - Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (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, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said.