Opening Oil Exploration: HELP and OALP

How India's 2016 Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy and Open Acreage Licensing aimed to attract investment with simpler, revenue-sharing contracts.

India has tried to attract more investment in exploration.

Earlier policy

NELP (1999) used production sharing contracts, where companies recovered costs before sharing profits.
Critics said it encouraged gold-plating costs and led to disputes.

HELP

The Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (2016) introduced revenue sharing: companies share revenue with the government from the start.
A single licence covers oil, gas and other hydrocarbons.
Marketing and pricing freedom for new discoveries.

OALP

Open Acreage Licensing Policy lets companies choose areas to explore and bid in regular rounds.

Results

Many blocks were awarded, mostly to ONGC and Oil India.
Foreign majors showed limited interest.

2025 reforms

The Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Amendment Act, 2025 aimed to further ease investment.

Lesson

Simple, stable rules help attract risky long-term investment.

The chosen block

An oil company studies geological data, picks an area it thinks promising, and bids for it in an OALP round.

Thinking new policies quickly bring foreign investors

Foreign majors showed limited interest.

Key takeaways

NELP (1999) used production sharing.
HELP (2016) introduced revenue sharing and single licences.
OALP lets firms choose areas to bid on.
Foreign interest remained limited.