FG awards marginal oilfields to AA Rano, Matrix, others

The Federal Government, through the Department of Petroleum Resources, has issued letters of award to investors who emerged successful in the marginal field bid round that was launched a year ago.

The DPR, had announced on June 1, 2020 the start of the 2020 Marginal Field Bid Round, with 57 fields available for indigenous companies and investors interested in participating in the exploration and production business in Nigeria.

At the awards ceremony on Monday in Abuja, the DPR was silent on the exact number of firms that emerged successful for the awards.The companies that were called upon to receive their award letters include A.A Rano Nigeria Limited, Dutchess Energy, Emadeb Energy Services Limited, Matrix Energy Limited, Shafa Exploration and Production Company Limited, Casiva Limited, Duport Midstream Company Limited, and Vhelbherg Exploration and Production Development Company Limited.

The exercise was carried out in two phases, which were expression of interest/pre-qualification phase, and technical and financial phase.

According to the agency, a total of 591 expression-of-interest applications were submitted and 540 were successfully pre-qualified during phase one of the exercise.

At the end of phase two, 422 bids were submitted by 405 applicants and following the evaluation of the bids, 161 companies were shortlisted as potential awardees.“Out of this number, about 50 percent have met all conditions and therefore eligible for award today.

We are set to ensure that opportunities are extended to other deserving applicants to fill the gap,” the Director/Chief Executive Officer, DPR, Auwalu Sarki, said at the event.Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the event, Sarki said, “What is expected from the awardees is for them to go and form SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) and come up with the required Field Development Plan.

“We’ve already gone far with the farm agreement, which they will now face the leaseholders and we’ve soften the ground for them on this. We expect them to come up with a work program and we will support them.

We will lend the experience of DPR to make sure that they realise the needed return on investment.”He added, “After the SPV, for which we gave them 30 days, as they make submissions, we will give them 90 days to do the farm-out agreement with the leaseholders.

“And immediately after that, we expect a work programme and we will help them in getting this. We are going to help them to ensure that we get first oil as early as possible.” Asked to state how many companies were given award letters, he replied, “All the companies that were qualified for the award we have already given them.“We are expecting that all the companies that do have capacity and capability for those fields that were not fully paid, we will give them the opportunity.”