Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and its partners will invest over $1 billion in exploring for oil and gas in the 14 oil and gas block they won in the fourth round of bidding under the new exploration licensing policy.

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Of the $1003 million investment committed, ONGC's share would be $890 million, Subir Raha, chairman and managing director of the company, told reporters in New Delhi, after signing the license agreements for exploring 14 oil and gas blocks.

ONGC and its partners -- Oil India Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd -- have committed a minimum investment of $412 million in the mandatory first phase of exploration in these blocks.

The second and third phase of exploration depends on results of the first phase and ONGC may decide to abandon any block and not make further investment if commercial quantities of oil and gas are not discovered.

Out of the $412 million commitment, ONGC's share would be $360 million.

"With the 14 blocks in NELP-IV, ONGC has 51 out of the 91 blocks awarded under the four rounds of bidding in the last four years," Raha said.

In NELP-IV, ONGC on its own won half of the ten deep sea oil and gas blocks on offer. It bagged two deep sea blocks in consortium with HPCL and a similar number in consortium with OIL and BPCL.

ONGC bagged Assam onland block with OIL, Gujarat block with Cairn and a block in Tamil Nadu with BPCL. With OIL as lead partner, ONGC got one block each in Assam and Rajasthan.