License Area Screening for Oil & Gas
Rosnedra's lists carry hundreds of license blocks across the country at any one time — 304 subsoil auctions were announced in Russia in 2024 alone. Running every one of them through a full evaluation isn't realistic: only a handful should ever reach that level of detail, not hundreds. Screening is the first filter — the one that narrows the list down to candidates actually worth a close look.
License-area screening is a first-pass filter across Russia's unallocated subsoil fund: hundreds of lots get narrowed to a shortlist by geology, infrastructure and economics, not by manually reviewing each one. The point of that first pass isn't to pick an asset — it's to work out which handful is worth a detailed evaluation at all.
Where Do You Find License Blocks to Begin With?
The official source is Rosnedra's website. The agency keeps separate lists of blocks for every Russian region and mineral type, and for oil and gas it also publishes a year-ahead forecast list — naming which blocks go to auction and roughly when.
"Forecast list of hydrocarbon subsoil blocks planned for auction in 2026" — Rosnedra — 2026 hydrocarbon block forecast list (in Russian)
The list isn't static: between January and July 2026 alone, Rosnedra's "Subsoil Block Lists" page carried at least five separate updates across different regions and mineral types. There's a second channel besides published lists and auctions — the application-based principle: an operator can file directly for a geological-study area that isn't on any list and isn't part of the federal reserve. Competition is lower there, but so is reliable reserves data — nobody has studied the block yet.
Even a block that made it onto the official list honestly doesn't always make it to a live auction.
"The main reason the plan fell short was a high rate of auctions that never happened — only about 51.4% of announced auctions actually took place." — Neftegaz.RU — budget revenue from subsoil-plot sales (in Russian)
What Criteria Filter Out the Weak Lots?
Screening isn't evaluating every block in turn — it's sorting by traits you can check quickly, before any detailed math.
Reserves category. Most lots in the unallocated fund have no proved reserves (A, B, C1) — nobody has drilled them yet. The realistic starting point is forecast resources (C2, P1–P3) and geological analogy to neighboring fields: the closer the lithology and pay thickness match a producing accumulation nearby, the better the odds of confirmation.
Infrastructure and logistics. A block 200 km from the nearest pipeline and one on the edge of a producing field are different economics even with identical geology — surface facilities eat into CAPEX harder than any difference in tax regime.
Competitive environment. Part of every list draws interest from several companies at once; another part sits for years without a single bid. Both are worth a look: competition confirms potential, and its absence can mean either weak geology or logistics nobody has found a way to make pay. Plenty of announced auctions don't even find a bidder.
"…in 2024, out of 304 announced auctions, licenses went to the owners of 153 blocks – half." — ANGI — subsoil auction statistics (in Russian)
Tax regime. HTR, offshore or mature-field status shifts the effective tax burden more than the difference in starting payment between neighboring lots — and belongs in the screen itself, not after the detailed evaluation.
What Do You Check on Each Shortlisted Block?
Once a few dozen lots survive the first filter, evaluate them against the same template — otherwise comparing them stops meaning anything.
- Reserves by analogy. For a block with no drilling history, the only workable method is geological analogy to the nearest fields of similar lithology, expressed as a P90/P50/P10 probabilistic range rather than a single point figure.
- Production profile. Ramp-up rate, peak and subsequent decline — by analogy to fields within 50–100 km with comparable reservoir properties.
- Economics across price scenarios. NPV and IRR under a base, upside and stress oil-and-gas price scenario — run for the whole shortlist at once, so blocks can be ranked against each other instead of evaluated in isolation.
- Ceiling entry price. The one-time auction payment, or the expected spend on geological study under the application-based principle — the point past which entry stops making economic sense.
This is the step that eats the most time under a manual process — which is exactly why only one or two lots from the list ever reach it, not the whole hundred.
Why Doesn't Manual Screening Scale?
The licensing market doesn't sit still: in 2025 alone, budget revenue from subsoil-plot sales rose 24% year on year — and new hydrocarbon fields keep turning up nearby, each one bound to land on a list sooner or later.
"We expect the 2025 total to come in at 28.6 billion rubles. That's 24% more than actual receipts in 2024. The 2025 forecast was 19.4 billion rubles, and it's been exceeded" — A. Kozlov, Russia's Minister of Natural Resources and Environment — Neftegaz.RU (in Russian)
Lists get updated by region and mineral type in parallel, not in one annual release — so a shortlist built in January is partly stale by summer: some lots drop off, others get added. A manual Excel model prices one block at a time and can't keep pace with every update. And because each analyst picks their own analogs and discount rate, even finished write-ups for ten blocks from different people can't be compared directly — without one methodology, the ranking isn't trustworthy.
How Does AVP AI Rank Hundreds of Blocks?
AVP AI — an AI platform for oil and gas asset evaluation — runs the entire list through the same methodology, not just a few priority picks. Given coordinates or a license number, the platform pulls a block's geology from open industry data, estimates reserves by analogy across a probabilistic P90/P50/P10 range, builds a production profile, and runs the economics — NPV, IRR — across several price scenarios. Every lot's result is comparable to every other's: one methodology, one set of assumptions, one report format.
What comes out is a ranked list, not a stack of separate reports: it's clear which handful of blocks out of a hundred on the list deserve a detailed look, and which can be closed out at this same step. For a lot that clears screening and heads to auction, the walk-away-price calculation comes next — see subsoil auctions. If the question is entering an already-producing asset instead of a new license, the same pipeline works for an entry-point valuation — see investing in oil and gas assets — and once a deal is on the table, it grows into a full oil and gas asset due diligence.
Frequently Asked Questions on License Area Screening
Screening is a fast, formal cut by geology, infrastructure and competitive environment that narrows hundreds of lots down to a handful of candidates. A full evaluation is a reserves, production-profile and economics calculation for each shortlisted block on its own, once a specific decision on bidding or filing is actually on the table.
Yes, through the application-based principle — on ground that isn't on any Rosnedra list and isn't part of the federal reserve. Competition is lower there, but so is reliable reserves data: with no drilling on record, you're left evaluating by analogy alone.
Not every announced auction finds a bidder. Per ANGI, in 2024, licenses ultimately went to the owners of only 153 out of 304 announced subsoil auctions. The reasons vary — from weak geology to logistics that don't pay off at any price.
For every lot on the list, the platform estimates reserves by analogy (P90/P50/P10), a production profile and economics — NPV, IRR — under one methodology, and rolls the results into a ranked list. Instead of a separate report per block, you get a table that shows straight away which lots deserve a closer look.
Sources
- Official source Rosnedra ↗ Subsoil Block Lists (in Russian)
- Official source Rosnedra ↗ Forecast list of hydrocarbon subsoil blocks planned for auction in 2026 (in Russian)
- Industry media Neftegaz.RU ↗ Budget revenue from subsoil-plot sales totaled 28.6 billion rubles for the year (in Russian)
- Industry media ANGI ↗ Share of successfully completed subsoil auctions rose in Russia in 2025 (in Russian)
We will screen your list of license areas — free of charge
Give us the license numbers or coordinates — we will pull the geology, estimate reserves, build production profiles and NPV. Get a ranked list instead of a stack of reports.