The federal government on Thursday said that it expects to rake in $600 million from the award of marginal oil fields.
Timipre Sylva, minister of state for Petroleum Resources made this known while speaking at the presidential media briefing on Thursday. He also said that the processing of marginal oil field award licences has been completed with the 161 winning bids already notified adding that 50 percent of them have paid the signature bonuses.
The minister, who was responding to a question on the marginal oil fields awards, said the process has been completed.
“At least from the last account report I got from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), almost 50 percent of the winners have paid. What we are expecting from the whole process is about $600 million and of course, we have also given an allowance for people to pay in naira so you have to pick which currency to pay in – in naira or dollars,” Sylva said. “They have up to April 20th, so there is some time although the jury is still out we believe that by April we would have got a lot of them to pay.”
Sylva also spoke on the imminent passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and what it holds for the country. He said the leadership of the National Assembly has assured that it is working assiduously to pass the PIB in April 2021.
The minister of state told reporters that the bill would not suffer a setback, going by all indications from the leadership of the National Assembly. This is because Nigeria is moving away from dependence on fossil fuel. The 20-year-old PIB would attract many investments to the gas sector.
On the issue of having functional refineries in the country, Sylva faulted Senator Dino Melaye’s analysis of the proposed rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery.
According to him, Melaye is no expert on refinery and should, therefore, not impress his views on an area he is not conversant with. The minister said the Federal Government remained committed to its promise to deliver a functional refinery to Nigerians in due time.
On the two agreements between Nigeria and Niger Republic for the importation of petrol from the neighboring country to Nigeria, Sylva explained that it is a way to boost trade between the two countries.
Nigeria and Niger had in July 2018, agreed to build a pipeline to bring crude oil from Niger to the proposed Katsina Refinery. The agreement was later followed in 2020 with another signed between the two countries on petroleum products transportation and storage.
Sylva said Nigeria wants to legalise the thriving illegal petroleum products sale already going on between the countries, adding that it also needs to share its experience in the oil exploration sector with neighboring countries.
“Although we have this agreement with Niger they have constraints on how to deliver on it to Nigeria because of the contract they have with the Chinese.”
Niger has a 20, 000 barrels per day refinery which is even bigger than their consumption. There is already illegal trading going on between Nigeria and Niger.
“We want to begin to create businesses with our neighbours. This is what the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) encourage. This boosts intra-regional trade.”
