Findings suggest that the Nigerian Government may have earned N2tn from the 2020/2021 marginal field bid rounds.
Marginal fields exist under Nigeria’s current Oil Mining Leases, OMLs. They include fields with reported reserves and production potential, which are however deemed marginal for a variety of reasons.
After 18 years of the last bid rounds, Nigeria through the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources, put up 57 onshore, swamp, and shallow offshore fields for bidding, and had set May 1, 2022 for the issuance of licences to winners.
Findings show that each of the awardees paid a total of N48bn (fees and bonuses) for the licence, resulting in combined revenue of over N2tr for the Federal Government.
A breakdown of the N48bn include: N500, 000 registration fee, N2m application per field, N3m bid processing fee, data prying fee of $15, 000 per field, data leasing fee of $25, 000 per marginal field, competent persons report fee of $50, 000 per field, and $25, 000 per field for field specific report.
The Chief Executive, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Gbenga Komolafe, had in January said about N174bn was raised from the 2020 bid rounds, as about 33 awardees failed to make payment within the specified 45-day window.
In the past 21 years, about 87 of such fields have been developed, including the 57 whose sales are being finalised by the Federal Government.
Nigeria is currently facing low crude oil production as a result of low investments in the upstream, among other issues.
