New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) The government has extended the deadline for submitting bids under the latest oil and gas block auction for the third time, giving potential investors six more weeks, according to DGH.

Bid submission deadline for the OALP-X licensing round, the largest acreage offering, has been extended till February 18, 2026, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said on its website.

While it did not give any reason for the extension, industry sources said this may have been done keeping in mind the holiday season that sets in at the year-end in many countries.

The 10th round of Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-X), which was launched in February during India Energy Week (IEW) 2025 in New Delhi, was originally scheduled to close at the end of July. In late July, the deadline was extended to October 31 and again to December 31, 2025.

Alongside, the deadline for submission of bids under the fourth round of Discovered Small Field (DSF) bid round and the special coal-bed methane (CBM) round too were extended till February 18, 2026.

Under OALP-X, 25 blocks with a total area of about 191,986 square kilometres have been offered. The acreage on offer comprises six onshore blocks, six shallow-water tracts, one deepwater block and 12 located in ultra-deepwater across 13 sedimentary basins.

The round includes four blocks with a combined area of 47,058 sq km in the Andaman basin, which Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has been touting as having the potential to hold even greater volumes of oil and gas reserves than those found in exploration hotspot Guyana.

The round offers the largest area so far for exploration and production of crude oil, which is refined into fuels like petrol and diesel, and natural gas, which is used to produce power, make urea, turned into CNG to run automobiles and fire household kitchens.

In the previous nine rounds, 3.78 lakh sq km area was offered.

The last bid round, OALP-IX, was the largest before the current bid round. The OALP-IX bid round featured 28 blocks or areas spread over 1.36 lakh sq km were offered for finding and producing oil and gas.

OALP bid rounds were introduced after an open acreage policy was brought in 2016, which moved away from the previous practice of the government identifying and bidding out blocks to one where explorers were allowed the freedom to identify any area outside of the ones that are already with some company or other, for prospecting of oil and gas.

The salient features of this policy, called Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), include reduced royalty rates and concessional royalty rates for early commercial production, no oil CESS, exploration rights on all retained areas over the full contract life, and marketing and pricing freedom.

OALP-IX in September last year attracted four bidders that included state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) and private sector Vedanta Ltd, with most blocks getting just two bids, according to the DGH. It also for the first time saw Reliance Industries Ltd-BP Plc combine bidding together with ONGC for one block in Gujarat offshore.

ONGC on its own won 11 blocks and another three in partnership with OIL. It also won the show water block in the Gujarat-Saurashtra basin that it had bid with Reliance-BP.

Mining billionaire Anil Agarwal's Vedanta, which had bid for all the 28 blocks on offer, won seven blocks while OIL walked away with the remaining six.

Prior to OALP-IX, Reliance and its supermajor partner BP had bid in just two of the preceding eight bid rounds since 2017. They had won both those blocks.

Blocks are awarded to firms offering the highest share of revenues generated from oil and gas produced from the blocks and the work programme they commit to.

The government has been hoping that opening up more acreage for exploration will help boost India's oil and gas production, helping cut down the USD 220 billion oil import bill.

In 2016, it brought in an open acreage policy which moved away from the previous practice of the government identifying and bidding out blocks to one where explorers were allowed the freedom to identify any area outside of the ones that are already with some company or other, for prospecting of oil and gas.

The areas identified are to be clubbed twice a year and offered for bidding.

The firm identifying the area gets a 5-point advantage.

Vedanta Ltd walked away with 41 blocks out of the 55 blocks on offer in the very first round and got another 10 areas in two subsequent rounds.

Other rounds have been dominated by state-owned firms. PTI ANZ MR