The Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) Mr Auwalu Sarki, says over 600 companies have applied to be prequalified for the ongoing bid rounds in Nigeria’s 57 Marginal Fields , the first in almost 20 years.
The Director disclosed the number on Tuesday in a television programme, NAN reports.
Nairametrics reported last month that over 300 companies applied to be prequalified for the Nigerian Marginal Field Bid Round.
Marginal oil field is an oil field that has reserves and has remained productive for a period of over 10 years.
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The Director said Nigeria’s last bid round for the marginal fields was in 2003, and also revealed that the bidding exercise has gained lots of interest due to the transparent process set up by the DPR.
” 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 per cent 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.”
He said that the interest so far is good for Nigeria as it shows that there are companies ready to invest in Nigeria.
