Oil and Natural Gas Corp has a total of 165 marginal fields, out of which 144 fields have either been put on production or are in the process of monetisation. The remaining 21 fields may be auctioned for development through an international competitive bidding (ICB) route, company sources said.

These 21 marginal fields comprise of five oilfields (four onland and one offshore), 14 gas fields (nine onland and five offshore) and two offshore oil and gas fields, which have been estimated to cumulatively hold crude reserves of 0.4969 million tons and gas reserves of 1.519 billion cubic meters.

Marginal fields are the oil and gas discoveries made by national oil companies in blocks awarded to them on nomination basis, but have not been exploited on the ground of commercial viability of technological constraints.

The sources said the Petroleum Ministry is likely to approach the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) soon for approval of the new Marginal Field Policy (MFP) under which ONGC and Oil India Ltd can auction off a large number of marginal fields, where discoveries have been made but not monetised, for development.

Of the 21 marginal fields of ONGC, five are in Gujarat, one in Rajasthan and seven in Andhra Pradesh while the remaining eight are in shallow water off the west coast. OIL has 14 marginal fields.

Public and private companies would be invited to bid for development of these marginal fields, they said adding successful companies would be asked to begin production from onland fields within three years and from offshore fields in five years.

The companies developing the fields may either get a fixed fee for their efforts or may share the output with the state-run firms in a pre-decided ratio.

The proposed policy also provides for the companies paying only half of the applicable royalty on crude oil and gas they produce while being completely exempt from payment of Rs 2,500 per tonne cess on oil.