By Mordi chukwunonso Esther 

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) said that it has successfully shortlisted 161 companies to advance to the final stage of the bid round process for 57 marginal oilfields. 

Earlier, The DPR had announced the selling  of Nigeria’s 57 marginal oilfields across the country and the commencement of the bid rounds in June 2020, which came 18 years after the last bid round was conducted in 2003.

The head of public affairs, DPR, Paul Osu, announced the development in a statement on Thursday.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the bidding exercise, which includes expression of interest/registration, pre-qualification, technical and commercial bid submission and bid evaluation, was conducted electronically.

Osu said over 600 companies applied for the pre-qualification round of the bid rounds.

”The 2020 marginal oilfield bid round process is still ongoing in line with our published timelines on DPR website and bid portal,” he said.

“The current status is that 161 successful companies have been shortlisted to advance to the next and final stage of the process.”

Osu said DPR had put measures in place to ensure that the awardees for the marginal oilfields bid would be credible investors with technical and financial capability.

He said the objective of the 2020 marginal field bid round is to deepen the participation of indigenous companies in the upstream segment of the oil and gas industry and provide opportunities for technical and financial partnerships for investors.

According to Osu, 16 fields from the previous marginal field bid rounds now contribute two percent to the national oil and gas reserves, while bringing development to their host communities in the Niger Delta.