Bid round: NNPCL loses as TotalEnergies, others win oil blocks

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Exploration and Production Limited, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, lost out in the just-concluded oil licensing bid round as winners emerged on Wednesday.

The winners were formally announced by the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Gbenga Komolafe, at the licensing round commercial bid conference held in Lagos.

During the electronic bidding process, it was unveiled that the NNPC E&P bid for three deep offshore assets – PPL 303, PPL 305, and PPL 306 – which it lost to other companies.

However, Komolafe said NNPCL is a reserved bidder for the three assets.

Our correspondent reports that TotalEnergies won a block out of the two it contested for.

In the final result, SIFAX & RoyalGate Consortium won PPL 300-DO; OceanGate Engineering Oil and Gas Ltd won PPL 302-DO and PPL 3007; Homeland Integrated won PPL 304-DO; Hakilat Oil & Gas Consortium Ltd defeated NNPC E&P to clinch PPL 305-DO; BISWAL Oil & Gas Ltd also defeated NNPC E&P to win PPL 306-DO.

After having a tie, MRS Oil & Gas later defeated NNPC E&P to win PPL 303-DO.

Similarly, Petroli Energy Marketing and Supply Ltd got PPL 269; Sahara Deepwater Resources Ltd won both PPL 270 and PPL 271; Panout Oil & Gas beat TotalEnergies and three other bidders to secure PPL 300/301 CS. Panout also claimed PPL 3015.

In the same vein, TotalEnergies E&P won PPL 2000/2001.

As sole bidders, BISWAL won PPL 2002; First E&P has PPL 2003 and PPL 2006; Deywayles International Limited secured PPL 2004; Applefield Oil & Gas got PPL 2005; R28 Holdings Ltd won PPL 2007 and PPL 3011; Tulcan Energy E&P won PPL 2008 and 3012; Broron Energy secured PPL 2009; Hakilat Oil & Gas claimed PPL 3016; and Applefield Oil & Gas won PPL 3017.

Addressing newsmen after the exercise, Komolafe disclosed that out of the 31 blocks on offer, 25 were bid for, saying the remaining six would be included in the next bid round.

The commission’s chief executive announced that there will be another oil licensing bid round in 2025.

According to him, the commission made licensing rounds an annual exercise to boost oil production.

Komolafe said the 2025 exercise would focus on unexplored assets.

“Ladies and gentlemen, while we are proud of our recent achievements as industry stakeholders, we must remain mindful of the challenges ahead. Declined production levels and failed global competition demand strategic action. Interestingly, the Petroleum Industry Act has given us a unique opportunity to transform the industry, attract investments, and position Nigeria as a forefronter.

“To this end, I am pleased to announce that the NUPRC will launch another licensing round in the year 2025. Building on the lessons learned from this year’s round, the 2025 exercise will focus on discovered and undeveloped fields, fallow assets, and prioritise natural gas development to support Nigeria’s commitment to UN Sustainable Development Goals,” he announced.

Explaining further, Komolafe said the regulator’s commitment has been to restore investors’ confidence in the industry, saying this it has done diligently by ensuring that its activities are in alignment with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act.

“What we are doing here today is not a matter of discretion by the commission or the statutory provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act. The statutory provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act provide that the commission should conduct licensing rounds.

“The law did not make it annual, but to ensure that we grow, preserve, and optimise our hydrocarbon resources, as I said, we are committed to annual licensing rounds. And that’s why I said that after this (2024) exercise, we will commence another one in 2025,” he emphasised.

The NUPRC boss added that the commission has started the recovery of idle assets based on the ’drill or drop’ provision of the Petroleum Industry Act.

“There is a provision in the Petroleum Industry Act that speaks to ‘drill or drop’. So, we have been having engagements with the industry to ensure that unexplored areas and resources are harvested back into the basket; and we have done this. We intend to rebuild those idle assets, because a lot of our assets remain idle, and that is not the intent of the Petroleum Industry Act.

“So as a commission and as a regulator, we have started activating the drill or drop provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act, which is intended to ensure that our assets do not just remain idle. So, we are harvesting them into the basket, and we will ensure that they go for bidding to interested bidders in the next licensing round,” he stated.

Speaking on the 2024 bid round, Komolafe described it as a history-making event in the country.

He said this was the first time the NUPRC conducted a bid round adjudged to be transparent and in line with international best practices.

“In our history of almost seven decades of exploration and production in the Nigeria upstream sector, this is the first time that we are conducting an exercise that could be adjudged to be in alignment with the international best practices in terms of the licensing round. Since the assumption of office, we promised the nation that we would conduct the affairs of the Nigerian oil and gas industry in alignment with the prescriptions of the law.

“Don’t forget that the Petroleum Industry Act actually mandates the commission to ensure that bidding for oil blocks in Nigeria, as against being discretionary, shall only be done in a fair, transparent, and competitive manner.

“So, it is a dictate of the law, it’s a prescription of the law to ensure that licensing round must be done in a fair, transparent and competitive manner. So the provision of our Petroleum Industry Act is in alignment with best practices. So what we have done today, and a clear departure from history, is to show that as a nation we can actually do things right and that we can conduct an exercise in a transparent manner.

“As you members of the press can see, even bidders, companies that do not win, they still judge the exercise as fair and transparent. The transparency with which we have conducted this exercise will free us from what had been the practice where after this kind of exercise you see a barrage of litigations,” he stated.

He added that the commission expects fewer litigations and very minimal complaints, saying “Nothing can be more transparent than what you can see with your eyes”.

The CCE boasted, “We’ve conducted this exercise leveraging technology in a manner that all participants were there and the announcement is on a real-time basis like you have seen. They confirmed their submission, and they confirmed the winners and the losers were there.

“So, we don’t expect any complaint from anybody. The exercise is fully recorded and all it requires to prove if anybody raised any complaint is just the computer printout.”

He emphasised that one way to grow the national oil reserves and increase daily production is to conduct the licensing round.

He disclosed that the next step is to issue provisional letters of award to the winners.

“We call it provisional because the provisional terms of the award will be clearly stated in that offer. So we expect that the offeree will pay the signature bonus. Now, emphasis is placed on the work programme. We expect that when people get their offer letters, there is a specified time within which they are expected to pay the signature bonus and expected to operationalise the work programme.

“So, what we have done today means that by the time the winners begin to operationalise and implement the terms of the award, what you are going to see is that you are going to unlock other reserves because they are going to go by way of exploration. They are going to make more discoveries, and those discoveries will optimise the federation reserves,” he maintained.

He recalled that the commission promised the nation to conclude the 2024 exercise, saying, “We have successfully and transparently concluded it. And by 2025, by the grace of God, we intend to commence another fresh run. And that is being driven largely by the fact that we are implementing another provision of the Petroleum Industry Act that provides that unexplored areas should be yielded into the basket.”

The NUPRC Legal Adviser, Olayemi Anyanechi, echoed that under the doctrine of ’drill or drop’, bidders, who are holding on to unexplored areas will lose them in 2025.

She said winners who fail to do the needful within a time frame would lose their blocks to reserved bidders.