Atanu Chakraborty, director general at India’s upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), says the government plans to implement the open acreage system by next year, incorporating lessons from the discovered small fields bid round launched in May.
“It would be in place by March at the latest, even though we would like to do it even earlier,” says Chakraborty.
A national data repository (NDR), a pre-requisite for implementing the open acreage licensing plan, is thought to be almost ready.
