The federal government generated the sum of N200 billion from the 2020 marginal field bid round exercise.
This is in addition to another $7 million from the same exercise.
Marginal fields are smaller oil blocks developed by indigenous companies not exploited in the last ten years.
Chief executive officer, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Gbenga Komolafe, disclosed this while issuing petroleum prospecting licences (PPL) to successful bidders in Abuja.
In May 2021, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), now NUPRC, completed the first successful bid programme after 18 years of bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Successful companies include Ardova Plc, Matrix Energy Ltd, Sun Trust Oil Company Limited, Deep Offshore Integrated Service Ltd, Island Energy Ltd, Sigmund Oil Field Ltd, among others.
Komolafe said that out of the 665 entities that expressed interest in the exercise, 161 PPLs were awarded to successful 2020 marginal fields companies while out of the 57 fields presented in the bid round, 41 were fully paid for.
He said 37 fields were also issued with the PPL, having satisfied all conditions for the award.
He explained that the marginal fields award initiative began in 1999 and was borne “out of the need to entrench the indigenisation policy of government in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry and build local content capacity.”
He added that the scheme was also targeted at creating employment opportunities and encouraging increased capital inflow to the sector.
“Since its inception, a total of 30 fields have been awarded, with seventeen 17 currently producing. A breakdown of the allocation of the fields to indigenous operators is as follows: two fields awarded in 1999, 24 in 2003/2004, one each in 2006 and 2007, and two in 2010. 10 years later, in 2020, 57 fields were put up for bidding,” he said.
Komolafe decried that revenue earning in the country was not reflective of the upsurge in international prices of crude oil owing to sabotage, theft, as well as other operational challenges.
