The Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Auwalu Sarki, said on Tuesday over 600 companies had applied to be prequalified for the ongoing bid rounds of 57 marginal oilfields in the country.
Sarki, who disclosed on a television programme in Lagos, said Nigeria last conducted marginal field bid rounds in 2003, stressing that the ongoing exercise had attracted widespread interest because of transparent and credible procedures put in place by the DPR.
He said: “First I will say that we have really witnessed an increase in bidders after the extension of the deadline to June 21. There has been almost 30 percent increase in the participation.
“If you are making a bid or auctioning any oil field, you need to get 10 people per field really going after the field. We have 57 fields and we have over 600 companies. So we can say that we are celebrating success so far.
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“After the extension, we are moving according to schedule and now we are in the phase where we do pre-qualification for the bidders to apply. Everything is going perfectly.”
The DPR director described the development as good news for Nigeria because it shows that the country is ready for business and credible companies are interested in investing in the country.
Sarki added that strategic programmes had been put in place by the DPR to mitigate the impact of a second wave of COVID-19 pandemic on Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
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