The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) is offering 57 oil fields as the federal government officially launches Marginal Fields bid around.
Marginal fields are smaller oil
blocks that are typically developed by indigenous companies. The oil bid
round is open to indigenous companies
and investors, the DPR said. The fields on offer are on land, swamp and the
shallow offshore.
From the date of announcement the agency said the process should not
take longer than six months. Should
winning companies fail to demonstrate progress on an awarded field within
60 months, the Ministry of Petroleum
has the authority to cancel the farmout agreement. The concluding phase will see the signing of farmout agreements with leaseholders.
According to the released guidelines
effective from June 2020, potential
investors willing to participate in the
2020 Marginal Fields bid round can
now submit their application.
Previously, Nigeria had revoked
the licences so these fields could go
into the new licensing round – the
first marginal field round since 2002
– which the country hopes will boost
oil output and bring in much-needed
revenues from fees associated with
the licences.
The 23-pages guidelines released
by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), says the exercise which will be conducted electronically involves five stages such as Expression of Interest/Registration, Prequalificati- on, Technical and Commercial bid sub- mission and Bid evaluation.
For potential investors, there are
at least 57 Marginal Fields located on
land, swamp and shallow water terrains
in the bid basket, including 11 fields,
the licences for which were revoked in
early April 2020.
The Marginal Fields bid round is
expected to take a maximum of six
months after the official announcement
of kick-off while bidding forms will be
provided by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
The application process which is expected to give local players the best opportunity to participate in Nigeria’s energy sector shall attract non-refundable chargeable fees as follows: Application fee of N2 million per field, Bid Processing Fee of N3 million per field, Dataprying fee of $15,000 per field, Data Leasing fee of $25,000 per field, Competent Persons Report of $50,000 and $25,000 for Fields Specific Report.
All application fees and processing
fees are expected to be paid into the
Treasury Single Account (TSA) while
Signature Bonuses are expected to be
paid into the Federation Account.
Also, fees for data leasing, data
prying, Competent Persons Report
(CPR) and Field Specific Report should
be paid into the National Data Repository (NDR) account for repayment.
According to the approved guidelines, applicants must show evidence
of technical and managerial capability
and must also demonstrate the ability
to fully meet the objective of undertaking expeditious and efficient develop- ment of a Marginal Field. Meanwhile, spokesman of the DPR, Paul Osu said there was no truth in a report that the process will be held down by court pronouncement involving the Ororo field, OML 95, and the Dawes Island Marginal Oil Field, formerly called OML 54, which were among 11 licences revoked by the DPR in April.
He told LEADERSHIP that it was
wrong to assume that nullification of
action of government on few fields by
court would truncate an entire exercise. All 11 were set to be included in a to- tal of 56 fields in the marginal field licensing round.
Two different judges in Lagos granted decisions on May 27 that halts the
inclusion of the two fields in any licencing round. Potential
legal challenges relating to the other
licences revoked in April mean that all
of the 11 licences could potentially be
left out of the round, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Owena Oil and Gas Ltd, said in its
lawsuit that the DPR revoked its OML
95 licence „without recourse to the
plaintiff,“ court documents seen by
Reuters showed. Eurafric Energy Ltd.
challenged the revocation of Dawes Island and said it had spent money developing the asset.
The federal government said last
month it would delay major licencing
rounds due to coronavirus disruptions,
more than halving its projected revenue
from signature bonuses to N350 billion ($972.22 million) from N93
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