The government hopes to attract more than $1 billion (Rs 6,900 crore) of investment in exploration and production blocks awarded to companies on Tuesday under new rules for auctions of oil and gas fields, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.

The government awarded 32 blocks in the latest two exploration licensing rounds called the open acreage licensing policy (OALP), which allows companies to carve out any area they want to drill.

State-owned Oil India Ltd bagged 12 blocks followed by private resources major Vedanta Ltd with 10. A consortium of Reliance Industries Ltd and BP Plc got one.