With major global energy giants choosing to stay away from the Ninth Round of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), the Central Government on Monday received 74 bids for 33 oil and gas exploration blocks out of 34 blocks on offer with state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) bidding for maximum number of blocks.

ONGC, which had won almost two-thirds of the blocks offered in NELP VIII, bid for as many as 29 areas in the latest round.

Another public sector company, Oil India Ltd (OIL) bid for two areas.

State-run GAIL (India) and upstream subsidiary of state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) bid for four blocks.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) bid for six blocks — two deep sea areas in the Andaman Basin in the Bay of Bengal and four onshore blocks in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Cairn India Limited (CIL) submitted offers for only two blocks — one onland and one offshore. Interestingly, it has not bid for any two exploration blocks on offer in Rajasthan.

The only other notable bidder was U.K.'s BG Group, which teamed up with BHP Billiton to bid for a deep-water block in the Mumbai basin, off the West Coast. Essar Oil bid for one onland block in the Cambay Basin.

“The response to the latest round of NELP has been more than satisfactory.

It has been encouraging,” Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister S. Jaipal Reddy told reporters after the close of bidding for the 34 blocks offered in NELP-IX here.

Rejecting arguments that regulatory troubles on the Cairn-Vedanta Resources deal sent negative signals to investors,

Mr. Reddy said “We have not taken a negative view or a positive view. We have maintained absolute neutrality. The foreign investors did not stay away due to any government policy.”

“We have put in place a very transparent policy. Full justice is being done to foreign companies.

It is not for want of inviting atmosphere in India that they did not bid.

The blocks would be awarded and production sharing contracts (PSC) will be signed in four months,” he added.

ONGC and OIL teamed up to bid for 15 blocks together, while North East-focussed OIL bid for two blocks on its own as operator.

Of the 33 blocks that got bids, 14 areas received single bid.

ONGC and its partners are the sole bidders in 10 blocks.

OIL and its partners are sole bidders for one Mumbai offshore shallow water block.

India had got an investment commitment of $1.1 billion in NELP-VIII.

The most sought-after block was a Cambay Basin onland block in Gujarat, which got six bids, including from RIL, Essar Oil, ONGC-OIL-HPCL and a GAIL-Bharat PetroResources-EIL-Bharat Forge consortium.

Out of the 34 blocks, 19 blocks are totally new areas — seven in deep sea, two in shallow water and 10 onland blocks.

The remaining 15 (one in deep water, 5 in shallow water and 9 onland blocks) are recycled blocks.