Sri Lanka’s upstream regulator continues to talk up the prospects for its offshore licensing round, flagging up interest shown by several majors in its acreage.

According to Saliya Wickramasuriya, head of the country’s Petroleum Resource Development Secretariat, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total have all shown interest in bidding on blocks in the current round. He added that Italy’s Eni and ONGC Videsh and Cairn India could also place bids, according to Reuters.

“(These) six and some smaller companies have shown interest as of now ... on more than one occasion they have visited us and continue to seek clarification on terms of the contracts,” said Mr Wickramasuriya.

Sri Lanka has 13 blocks up for grabs in its second offshore licensing round, with eight blocks lying in the Mannar Basin and five in the Cauvery Basin, and recently added another six ultra-deep blocks off its south-eastern coast ‘out-of-round’ for joint studies to prospective bidders (see DI, 2 September 2013, page 7). The Cauvery Basin blocks range from 2,403 sq km in the shallow waters of the Palk Straight to 4,566 sq km in deepwater areas north-east of the island. The deepwater Mannar basin blocks are larger, ranging from 2,714 to 8,120 sq km in the Gulf of Mannar.

Bids must be submitted by 29 November, with Sri Lanka aiming to make licence awards early in 2014.

Wickramasuriya added that Total and a couple of the other companies are eyeing the joint study blocks. The first review of proposals will take place this week.

Interest in Sri Lanka grew after the discovery of oil and gas in two recent deepwater wells – Dorado and Barracuda – in SL 2007-01-001 in the Mannar Basin by Cairn Energy.