NEW DELHI, July 16 (Reuters) -
* India hopes to attract more than $1 billion of investmentinexploration and production blocks awarded to companies onTuesday under new rules for auctions of oil and gas fields, oilminister Dharmendra Pradhan said
* India awarded 32 blocks in the latest two explorationlicensingrounds called the open acreage licensing policy (OALP), whichallows companies to carve out any area they want to drill
* State-owned Oil India Ltd bagged 12 blocksfollowed byprivate resources major Vedanta Ltd with 10.
* A consortium of Reliance Industries Ltd and BPPlcgot one(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Mark Potter)
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