The controversial listing of one of Nigeria’s major oil producer’s fields in the schedule of the marginal oil fields bid rounds, appears to have been responsible for the delay in the release of the timetable for the bid process, BusinessDay can today reveal.
The timetable for the process had been expected for the past three months, following the announcement for the bid process by Diezani Alison-Madueke, minister of Petroleum Resources.
But investors who have been eagerly awaiting the timetable may soon heave a sigh of relief, as the Department of Petroleum Resources(DPR) promises to release it this month.
With the release of the timetable, investors would have the opportunity to obtain more information in respect of the assets they intend to buy and also to know when the bids would hold.
George Osahon, director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) who disclosed this to BusinnessDay, said the issue delaying the release of the timetable is expected to soon be resolved.
Osahon who confirmed that there was an issue with one of the fields, said it was being worked on and would soon be resolved. He said the time table would be release this month, even though he was not specific on the exact date.
He said he did not want a situation where some of the fields were isolated because there were issues around them, while the others were put on offer. “It would look as if there is an under the table dealing, and people may start thinking that they have given them to some people”.
He said, “I want everything to be transparent.”
Some of the international oil companies were alleged to have complained of infringement on their fields and the DPR is trying to resolve the matter before it release the timetable, an industry source said.
Though Osahon did not mention the IOCs involved, unconfirmed sources said one of the companies complained that three of its fields put on offer in its divestment programme were included in the marginal fields list.
Another company was said to have complained that one of the fields being put on offer was located right in the middle of its operations, and that this would have environmental and security implications.
But the DPR director who did not confirm this, only said that he wondered why a company which knew that the government had a marginal fields bid round programme since 2010 would suddenly wake up when the announcement was made in 2013 to say it had reasons to object to the fields being listed in the exercise.
“I want to be convinced that the complaint which one of the companies made is genuine and the issue is thoroughly dealt with”, he said.
Prospective investors have been on edge because of the uncertainty over when the timetable and the list of marginal fields to be put on offer in the next licensing round would be released.
The situation has led to rumours in the industry that some of the 31 fields have already been given out to certain individuals that are close to the powers that be.
It was also gathered that among the 31 fields on the list are Uzuaku field on Oil Mining Lease (OML) 11 in Ogoni land, the Egbolom field on OML 23 that was previously operated by Shell in Rivers State, three offshore fields on OML 100 (Usoro, Ikong, Ibiom) and two on OML 67 (Amaniba and Ekpat).
By: Olusola Bello
