Offshore staff

(Nigeria) - Nigeria's government will hold a new bid round in April for 10 oil blocks with expected total revenue of $2 billion, according to Tony Chukwueke, the director of the Department of Petroleum Resources.

The 10 blocks include seven deepwater regions and three holdovers from the 2005 bid round. They are mainly targeted at providing production for downstream operators who are committed to building new projects such as refineries, power plants and gas pipelines in the country, Chukwueke said.

This round will focus on a limited number of bidders, in Chukwueke words, "We are going to limit it to really serious downstream players."

When asked if the new bid round was also considered a make-up for observed shortfalls of the 2005 bid round, Chukwueke denied this and stated that it was a consolidation of what was done in the last round. "It was a mini because it is limited in size. The government wants to meet its obligations to all the major downstream players that had committed a lot of money to downstream oil and gas."

Chukwueke went on to say: "We have set a very tough downstream investment hurdle, based on investors who are committed already and prepared to spend over $2 billion either in building refineries, or building power plants, gas pipelines for gas consumption, or railroad projects or even agriculture, (in a) fuel replacement program to put ethanol in our energy mix."

03/24/2006