The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has given potential investors 48 hours deadline to register for the 2024 oil block licensing bid round.
The commission’s Managing Director, Engr. Gbenga Komolafe, announced the registration timeline on Wednesday at the 23rd 2024 Nigerian Oil and Gas Energy Conference (NOG) with the theme “Showcasing Opportunities, Driving Investment, Meeting Energy Demand’’ held in Abuja
In his presentation at the forum, the oil and gas industry expert in his presentation tagged “Defining the Outlook for Deep Water Exploration and Production in Nigeria’’ said the registration and submission of pre-qualification documents would close on Friday, July 5.
According to him, the announcement of the oil block licensing round, the launch of bid portal, and advertisement, which commenced on March 29, 2024, ended on May 10, 2024.
The NUPRC boss explained that technical and commercial bid submission, including data access/data purchase/evaluation/bid, preparation and submission, technical bid, evaluation/publications of pre-qualified companies and commercial bid conference would begin on August 7 and close by December 13 this year
Komolafe further clarified that ministerial consent, contracting and negotiation would commence on December 16 and end in January 29, 2025.
In addition, he explained the total number of blocks were 31 with five blocks were under litigation, adding that apart from the oil block licensing round, the commission had conducted a wide integrated study on the reactivation of shut-in strings in the country to explore and produce an estimated 700 million barrel per day (mbpd).
This is even as he disclosed that approvals had been granted for well interventions and re-entry operations with potential to develop greater than six million barrels of oil and five Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) of gas.
Komolafe also said that the Field Development Plans for additional production was approved from four fields with peak potential of circa 125 mbpd just as the commission accelerated the approval and commissioning of four Alternative Crude Oil Evacuation Routes (ACOER) with a total combined capacity of about 250 million barrels per day of crude oil.
He also disclosed that the commission had commenced the implementation of the drill or drop philosophy to optimise sustainable field development in line with Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) provisions as well as engaged the exploration and production (E&P) companies on unlocking about 57 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) of uncommitted or unmonetised gas reserves.
In addition, he said the NUPRC had developed and unveiled a template guiding the activities for Domestic Crude Oil Supply Obligation (DCSO) to ensure adequate and uninterrupted feedstock to all domestic refineries in the country and also issued the annual Domestic Gas Delivery Obligation (DGDO) to all lessees to drive gas production growth.
