DPR Director/Chief Executive Officer , Sarki Auwalu, said government would achieve its target through the expected upsurge in exploration programmes from the small, marginal fields and planned reform of the oil sector that would stimulate investment.
“The policies and programmes being implemented by the federal government, including the ongoing bid rounds for marginal oil fields, reforms in the oil and gas sector are geared toward realising these aspirations,” he said. He added that Nigeria also aimed to increase its gas reserves to 210 trillion cubic feet by 2025 and to 220 tcf by 2030.Nigeria’s oil reserves were 36.8 billion barrels as of January 2020, a drop of 0.
Without the Petroleum Industry Bill , the 1969 Petroleum Act, which the government depends upon, gives the petroleum minister what has been described as broad and subjective authority to award oil mining and prospecting licences. In past bid rounds, the use of discretionary power in the allocation of oil fields led to serious distortions and sub-optimal outcomes.
According to the DPR boss, 2,482 bids were submitted by 405 applicants at the end of the phase. Following the evaluation of the bids, 161 companies were shortlisted as potential awardees, out of which 50 per cent met all conditions and therefore eligible for the award ceremony that was organised last Monday.
“I called several times and they were on hand to respond. That for me was the first thing that convinced me that this time, the agency truly meant to be fair and thorough. At the end of the exercise, that was what happened.” He added that if you called to play the usual ‘Nigerian factor card’ to influence the process, you were politely turned down.
For the former PETAN President, any erring or deviant consortium should be called to the table and concerns thrashed out. Responding to the prayers of the awardees, Auwalu said: “Let me assure you, we are not leaving you alone. We have reached an advanced stage on the farm-out agreement.” He added that the agency has been meeting with the leaseholders through the entire process to get it right this time, and “It’s taking time because each lease has its own peculiarities.
A former President of Nigeria Association of Petroleum Explorationists , Abiodun Adesanya, had linked challenges faced by marginal field developers to funding, stressing that government counterpart funding for some of the projects could also be a problem.
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