The Federal Government declared on Monday that the seven deep offshore open oil blocs’ licensing round, which started on January 3, 2023, will end in four months time
It asked investors with knowledge of and experience with deep-water operations from around the world to accept the financial terms of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 and participate in the bidding for the oil blocs.
According to The PUNCH, this was disclosed by the Chief Executive, Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Gbenga Komolafe, in Lagos at the pre-bid conference for the 2022/2023 licensing round of petroleum prospecting licences in deep offshore Nigeria.
Following the announcement of the 2022/2023 mini-bid round exercise on December 22, 2022, the pre-bid conference was held.
Komolafe stated that the approval of the exercise by the president, major general muhammadu buhari (retd.), was the first in the last 15 years.
In his speech, the NUPRC boss explained the commission had announced the commencement and launched the bid round portal which was officially opened on January 3, 2023.
“The exercise is scheduled to last for approximately four months along the following processes: registration and pre-qualification, data prying/purchase, technical bid submission/presentation, technical bid evaluation, and commercial bid conference,” he stated.
He stated that the commission issued a licensing round guideline and published a licensing round plan for a total of seven deep offshore open blocs in accordance with the terms of the PIA 2021 and regulations enacted pursuant to the Act.
PPL-300-DO, PPL-301-DO, PPL-302-DO, PPL-303-DO, PPL-304-DO, PPL-305-DO, and PPL-306-DO were among the blocs he listed.
Komolafe said, “The seven deep offshore blocks, covering an area of approximately 6,700 km2 in water depths of 1,150m to 3,100m, are on offer in this mini-bid round.
“These are intended to be the first in a series of bid rounds aimed at further development of our prospective petroleum basins.”
As stated in Section 73 of the PIA, which aimed to attract new investors and investments into the next stage of oil and gas exploration in Nigeria, he claimed that the bid rounds were conducted within the bounds of the commission’s legal and regulatory frameworks.
“Let me clearly indicate that this pre-bid conference is a clarion call to technically and financially capable local and foreign investors to invest and take advantage of the generous fiscal and regulatory regime in the Nigerian upstream petroleum sector.
“The mini-bid round is a market-driven programme expected to outperform the last bid round which was held in April 2007 during which a total of 45 blocs were put on offer under a different regulatory regime (the Petroleum Act, 1969),” he stated
