Abstract

In recent decades, India has increasingly felt the need to reduce its dependence on imported crude oil by augmenting domestic production. In such pursuance, India recently enacted the Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) to attract private investments in India’s upstream oil and gas sector. One of the salient features of HELP is the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP), which sought to liberalize auctioning and licensing process of upstream oil and gas sector in India. This article analyses the salient features of the OALP to argue that it has remedied most of the problems associated with previous licensing regimes. Even though India has significantly liberalized the auction and licensing process, the fiscal terms governing the revenue sharing between the operator and the government have served as a deterrent to make India an attractive destination for foreign investors. Therefore, this article suggests that India must offer more attractive fiscal terms to oil companies to incentivize them to undertake the risk of investing in India’s upstream sector.

中文翻译：

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分析印度的开放土地许可政策：问题和观点

摘要

近几十年来，印度越来越感到有必要通过增加国内产量来减少对进口原油的依赖。为此，印度最近颁布了《碳氢化合物勘探许可政策》（HELP），以吸引对印度上游石油和天然气行业的私人投资。HELP的显着特征之一是开放土地许可政策（OALP），该政策旨在放宽印度上游石油和天然气行业的拍卖和许可程序。本文分析了OALP的显着特征，认为它已经解决了与以前的许可制度相关的大多数问题。即使印度已经大大简化了拍卖和许可流程，控制运营商与政府之间收益共享的财政条款阻碍了印度成为吸引外国投资者的目的地。因此，本文建议印度必须向石油公司提供更具吸引力的财政条款，以激励它们承担投资印度上游部门的风险。