The second bid round for Nigerian marginal fields will no longer happen in 2009, that is clear.  But significant anxiety exists, as much in the offices of those companies that haven’t made significant progress in bringing their fields on stream, as in the corridors of the department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), where interested parties are putting pressure on officials to revoke fields from non performing companies and announce a bid round programme.
The DPR is also having extensive discussions with Shell, TOTAL, Chevron, Agip and ExxonMobil, to take over more of their undeveloped discoveries and put them into the forthcoming bid round. It’s a tough and ardous negotiation. Agip, for one, has refused to release a single field.
Only five of the 24 undeveloped discoveries taken from multinationals and handed over to 31 Nigerian companies in 2004 are in production. It’s instructive that there hasn’t been much difference in terms of who the key actors, the aggressive companies in the programme were between when we last did the review in December 2008 and October 2009.
The DPR is expected to revoke the contracts of those who have lagged behind and provide opportunity to those companies yearning to be part of the programme.
Apart from Platform’s Asuokpu/Umutu field, Midwestern’s Umusadege, Walter Smith’s Ibigwe field, Pillar Oil’s Umusati/Igboku field, Energia’s Obodeti/Obudugwa, which are all on stream, Movido’s Ekeh and Britannia U’s Ajapa fields are very close to sustained production(Movido actually produced Ekeh very briefly).  Logistics of getting facility down on the ground are  preventing Movido and Brittania U from getting their fields on stream.
There has been considerable effort in a number of cases. After drilling a duster, Gulf of Guinea GOGE, technical partners to Frontier oil in Uquo field, plans on re-entering one of the wells that have been certified to hold oil in the field in the first place. The rig will be on location any moment. Vitoil was involved with Goland Petroleum in Oriri field, until community crisis created extensive delays, forcing the company to leave. Sinopec is finalising work on production facility for Universal Energy’s Stubb Creek. Afren helped Independent Oil and Gas do a work- over in Ofa field, but with very low API gravity, the flow of crude isn’t assured. The technical partner walked out and Independent Oil&Gas is still figuring out what to do. Another company figuring what to do is Chorus Energy, after its technical partner, Septa Energy drilled a dry hole in its Matsogo/Amoji/Igbolo fields.
The majority of the companies, however, haven’t even reached a point in the workflow.......................................more and full details in www.africaoilgasreport.com