India Plans To Launch Exploration Licensing Round

India will start auctioning for 14 oil and gas blocks in its second exploration licensing round Jan. 7, giving freedom to the companies to carve out areas they want to drill.

The blocks together hold undiscovered reserves of about 14,995 million tonnes of oil equivalent, according to a tweet from Directorate General of Hydrocarbon, India’s upstream regulator.

India, the world’s third biggest oil importer, wants to unlock its vast hydrocarbon resources to cut dependence on foreign oil.