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The auction offers Composite Licences — a single grant covering both exploration and mining — for two blocks on the abyssal seabed off Great Nicobar Island in the Andaman Sea: West Sewell Ridge-01 (1,000 sq km) and Sewell Rise-01 (632 sq km). Both were opened for bidding by a gazette notification dated 21 September 2026 under the Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 2002. Three days later, the Offshore Areas Mineral (Auction) Amendment Rules, 2026 (notified and in force 24 September 2026) rewrote four provisions of Rule 9 of the 2024 Auction Rules, lowering the number of technically qualified bidders required for a first-attempt auction to proceed from three to two — the ministry stated this was "crucial to improve the success rate of auctions in the first attempt which would help in reducing delays."
India's first offshore mineral auction tranche (13 blocks) launched 28 November 2024 but was cancelled in December 2025 after failing to draw the then-required three technically qualified bidders per block. This relaunch is a direct policy response: a narrower two-block offering paired with a lowered bidder threshold, aimed at avoiding a repeat failure.
Severity 2, mixed. The measured anchor is the combined 1,632 sq km block area opened for bidding — a narrow, two-block test of a relaunched auction mechanism, not yet the full offshore mineral licensing programme India has signalled (the cancelled 2024 tranche covered 13 blocks). No companies had been named as bidders as of the launch announcement.