The Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has maintained that it followed the stipulated regulations in awarding marginal oil fields.
It was reacting to a report published in a national daily (not the Tribune) that stated that it “did not adhere to its own regulations while implementing the 2020–2021 marginal fields’ award.”
The story also claimed that the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), in its latest report, ‘Oil and Gas Industry Report 2021′, indicated that the NUPRC awarded marginal fields to some companies prior to the payment of signature bonuses by the firms.
But in a statement by the Head of Public Affairs and Media Relations, Olaide Shonola, the Commission said the statements and the rest of the narratives contained in the report by the newspaper, purportedly extracted from the 2020 NEITI Report, are incorrect and a misrepresentation of both the process and outcome of the 2020 marginal field award exercise.”
It explained that the 2020 marginal field bid exercise was started by the now-defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) following presidential approval obtained to conduct the exercise.
The bid exercise, it said, was launched on June 1, 2020, stressing that a total of 57 marginal fields were made available for bidding through a transparent online electronic bidding system.
“Of the number of companies that indicated interest in the bid exercise by submitting their applications within the deadline set for that purpose, 540 companies were pre-qualified in line with the procedure set out in the Bid Guidelines.
“Ultimately, 482 out of the 540 companies pre-qualified submitted bids for the various fields on offer,” it said.
According to the Commission, at the end of the exercise and in line with existing government policy to encourage as many qualified Nigerian companies to participate in the upstream business, 161 entities from the 482 pre-qualified bids were offered marginal fields and given a deadline to make signature bonus payments.
“A number of these entities were offered fields on a joint basis. The Commission, upon inception, had to embark on extensive stakeholder engagements with the successful bidders to resolve the many issues arising from the policy of jointly awarding some of the fields to several awardees.
“These engagements were held in both Lagos and Abuja. In the event that those offered fields in the exercise were unable to fulfil their obligation to pay the signature bonus within the time frame specified, the Commission sought and obtained the approval of the Presidency to re-award those not paid to other entities who participated in the bid exercise but who were not offered any fields during the initial stage.
“These later awards were premised on the condition that companies present clear evidence of both financial and technical capability,” the Commission stated.
In view of this, the Commission said it neither awarded marginal fields to entities that did not participate in the 2020 marginal bid round nor awarded a field to any company that did not meet the obligation of paying the statutory signature bonus.
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