Marginal field bid will grow Nigeria’s reserve and deepen local content
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) says that the 2020 Marginal bid round will grow the nation’s oil and gas reserve, optimize the potentials of assets, create wealth and ensure good revenue growth of the Nigerian economy.
He also disclosed that over 600 companies have applied to be prequalified for the ongoing bid rounds of 57 marginal oilfields in the country and affirmed that none of the 11marginal fields in the court are part of the 57 fields.
Mr Auwalu Sarki, Director of DPR, made the disclosure while speaking at the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (Nape) Webinar Series on the theme: “Nigerian Marginal Field Bid Round: Implications, Challenges And Opportunities”.
He said that the 2020 Marginal bid round is a tailored to ensure a win win situation for all the stakeholders, Nigerians, government, Nigerian investors and foreign investors.
He noted that a multi range objective of the 2020 Marginal bid round include but not limited to generate employment,, increase nations production, build technical capacity, promotes indigenous participation, ,encourage capital inflow and promote use of shared facilities
According to Auwalu the objective of the 2020 marginal field bid round is to deepen the participation of indigenous companies in the upstream segment, and provide opportunities for technical and financial partnerships for investors.
He added that the existing 16 marginal oilfields contribute only two per cent to the national gas reserves, and their operations have brought peace and development to host communities in the Niger Delta
He expressed optimism that the current exercise, which is at the evaluation stage, would not encounter similar issues because of the processes put in place by the government.
Sarki continued: “We have learnt from the mistakes made in the past, and have come up with workable solutions to ensure that the objective of the development of our marginal fields is achieved.
“This time around, our awardees will be credible investors with technical and financial capability.
“There are also the Post-General Award Conditions. This deals with transfer of interest post-award. It means awardees cannot transfer more than 49 per cent interest to another party post-award.
“The conditions also include termination of rights of interest holders, which gives the minister the power to withdraw the interest of a party who fails to meet its obligations in terms of joint awardees.”
He noted that the ADR would reduce the years spent in courts over disputes that usually led to non-performance of the marginal fields, saying that the government would henceforth withdraw such awards.
“We believe that these steps will bring about a sustainable development of our marginal fields,” the director said.
The DPR boss also assured that the current bid round will be highly transparent, and noted that the process will use electronic system to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the bid round.
‘’I want to assure you that the federal government is committed to make the whole process work. Government is opening the economy and will not allow anything to truncate the whole process. ‘’ he noted
On the roadmap of marginal field awards he said 1999 saw 2 fields, 2003/04, was 24 fields,2006 and 2007 was one field,2010 was two fields and the current 2020 field is 57 fields.
