Indigenous oil firms, A.A. Rano, Shafa Exploration and 8 other companies have been awarded licence to prospect marginal oil fields by the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR.
The announcement by the department of petroleum resources (DPR) on Monday is coming months after 57 companies were announced as winners of the bidding round by DPR.
Other companies are: Emadeb Energy, Matrix Energy, and Vhelblerg Exploration were Sigmund Oil Field, Casiva Ltd, Duchess Energy, Duport Midstream, and KIZI oil and Gas.
The oil fields are located onshore, swamps and offshore.
The award crystallised a year after 2020 marginal field bid round began with 591 companies applying to win 57 oil fields on offer.
DPR estimates that Nigeria would produce additional 100 million barrels of crude oil from the 57 fields, in the coming years.
DPR Director/CEO, Engr Auwalu Sarki said the fields would boost Nigeria’s daily oil production capacity beyond the current three million barrels per day.
He stated that after undergoing lengthy and vigorous process, 161 companies were shortlisted as potential awardees out of which 50 percent have met all conditions.
He assured the licenced companies that the DPR would not abandon them after the award.
Sarki declared that the DPR would work with them to ensure immediate development and attainment of first oil in a record time.
According to him: “The journey began exactly one year ago on June 1, 2020 with the launching of the Bid round registration portal.
“The portal eased the registration and application process and ensured a transparent exercise.
“It also provided the platform for the virtual data room. It is important to state that the industry-enabled National Data Repository (NDR) provided all the requisite technical and logistics support for the successful conduct of the exercise.”
He said DPR would ensure that the indigenous companies faced minimal challenges from the International Oil Companies, the original lease owners for the fields.
Sarki expressed optimism that the development of the oil fields would stimulate job creation because “all the awardees have to recruit people which mean more taxes and revenue to government and at the same time it enhances the GDP because the contribution of the industry to the GDP is very low.”
Speaking on behalf of the bid winners, the Chairman of Vhelblerg, Bank Anthony Okoroafor thanked DPR for holding a transparent bid exercise.
According to him: “It was open to everybody; there was communication established with everybody and they did their own work very well.”
He, nevetheless, urged DPR to support the winning firms by talking to IOCs to allow the operators use their facilities if it was the most effective options.
