From Uche Usim, Abuja
Some investors of 57 marginal fields on Monday received letters of award from the Department of Petroleum Resources on Monday, signalling their clearance to commence crude production.
The Director/Chief Executive Officer, DPR, Auwalu Sarki, who issued the letters at an awards ceremony in Abuja did not give the exact number of firms that got the awards.
However, some of the companies that were called upon to receive their letters were; A.A Rano Nigeria Limited, Duchess Energy and Emadeb Energy Services Limited, Matrix Energy Limited, Shafa Exploration and Production Company Limited and others.
The firms, according to DPR, would be exploring 57 marginal fields located on land, swamp and offshore terrains, which were put on offer by the regulator in June 2020.
The exercise was carried out in two phases, which were the expression of interest/pre-qualification phase, and the technical and financial phase.
In the end, 591 expression of interest applications were submitted and 540 were successfully pre-qualified during phase one of the exercise.
At the end of the second phase, 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 per cent have met all conditions and therefore are eligible for award today.
“We are set to ensure that opportunities are extended to other deserving applicants to fill the gap”, Auwalu explained.
He added that the awardees were expected to come out with a work plan on how to produce crude oil from the fields for the benefit of Nigerians.