OREANDA-NEWS. April 21, 2015. The Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum & Natural Gas Shri Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply today that the oil and gas exploration activities are planned in the sedimentary basins having suitable geological setup for generation, accumulation, migration and entrapment of oil and gas in geological structure.

Under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) regime, so far, 9 exploration blocks have been awarded in Ganga basin under various rounds of bidding under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP). Out of the 9 blocks, 8 blocks have been relinquished and 1 block is under operation at present.

In so far as Bihar State is concerned, under the PSC regime, 3 exploration blocks have been awarded under various rounds of bidding under NELP. 2423 Line Kilometre(LKM) of 2D & 947 Square Kilometre(SKM) of 3D seismic data have been acquired and 3 exploratory wells drilled in these blocks. However, no oil/gas discovery has been made. All these exploration blocks have been relinquished by operators.

ONGC has acquired 8490 LKM of 2D, 947 SKM of 3D seismic data and has drilled 8 exploratory wells in Ganga, Kosi and Gandak basins in the State of Bihar.