The federal government has said about 50 per cent of the companies that won the marginal oil field bid rounds have paid their signature bonuses.
Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, stated this at the end of the ministry’s first quarter 2021 governance meeting in Lagos on Tuesday that the bid rounds were transparent, TheCable reports.
“The process has been concluded. Letters have gone out and people have started paying their signature bonuses. We have received almost 50 per cent of signature bonuses already; 161 companies were allocated marginal fields and I will not give you the details of how many have paid,” he said.
“I think this is the best we could have got clearly. If you followed the processes, we published, people applied, companies were prequalified, and companies went to the data room and of course, assessment of their bids was done by competent people.
“There were consultants involved in the whole process and bidders emerged, and that’s all I can say. It was a very transparent process and I think a lot of people are also hailing the process.”
Marginal fields are smaller oil blocs developed by indigenous companies. They are often discovered on an IOC-owned block where there has been no activity in at least the last 10 years.
The last marginal oilfield bid round held in 2002.
At the time, 24 licenses were awarded to 31 indigenous companies — 11 of which were revoked by the government for inactivity.
