Federal Government may have realized at least N2tn from the 2020/2021 marginal oil field bid rounds, according to investigations.
Marginal fields in Nigeria include fields with reported reserves and production potential, which are however deemed marginal for a variety of reasons. Notably, marginal fields exist under current Oil Mining Leases.
After 18 years of the last bid rounds, Nigeria through the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources put up 57 onshore, swamp, and shallow offshore terrains fields for bidding, and had set May 1, 2022, for the issuance of licenses to winners.
Nevertheless, the licenses were not issued due to delays in payments of the fees and bonuses by the winners of the oil fields, unconfirmed sources close to the situation said.
Findings done by our reporter showed that each of the awardees paid a total of N48bn (fees and bonuses) to gain access to the license, resulting in combined revenue of over N2tr for the Federal Government.
A breakdown of the N48bn includes: N500, 000 registration fee, N2m application per field, N3m bid processing fee, data prying fee of $15, 000 per field, data leasing fee of $25, 000 per field, competent persons report fee of $50, 000 per field, and $25, 000 per field for the field-specific report.
This brings the total payment to approximately N48bn per awardee.
