Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) and Essar Group have emerged as top bidders for the 16 coal-bed methane (CBM) blocks supplied across 2 consecutive bidding rounds, as per the list of bidders introduced via the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH).
State-owned Oil India Ltd. (OIL) bid for 3-blocks while India’s largest oil and gas manufacturers, ONGC stayed away.
The government presented 3 areas for exploration and manufacturing of natural gas that is trapped within coal seams underground, within the Special CBM Bid Round 2025, and another 13-blocks within the 2026 bidding round. Bids for the 2 rounds closed on March 5.
The gas manufacturer, called CBM or coal seam gas, is used as a cleaner burning fuel for power generation, heating, and industrial use. It can also turned into CNG to run automobiles and piped to household kitchens for cooking. It generally manufacturers fewer emissions than coal when burned.
Blocks offered in the 2025 and 2026 Special CBM bid rounds fall in Category II and III basins, in which entities providing the most work programme (drilling most wells) are awarded the areas.
Reliance bid for 3 out of the 13 blocks provided in Special CBM Bid Round 2026 even as Essar Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Ltd. (EOGEPL) bid for 3 blocks of 2026 round and 2 of the 3 blocks provided in 2025 round.
One block in the 2025 round and 7 of 2026 round did not attract to any bids, as per DGH. 4 of the 6 blocks of 2026 round that got bids, were single bids.
The 2 blocks of 2025 round got a couple of bids. Prior to the 2025 and 2026 unique CBM round, 33 blocks have been offered in 4- CBM bid rounds. However, most of them either had been relinquished or are under relinquishment due to low prospectivity.
As per the DGH, total prognosticated CBM resources for provided 33 CBM blocks was about 62.4-trillion cubic feet (Tcf), of which, thus far, 9.9 Tcf has been set up as Gas in Place (GIP). Reliance recently manufactures gas from two CBM blocks in Madhya Pradesh while Essar’s Raniganj East as well as Great Eastern Energy Corporation’s (GEECL) Raniganj West block (both in West Bengal), too, have been put on manufacturing.
