Federal Government to hold oil licensing round mid-2020

The Federal Government has concluded plans to launch a new oil licensing round mid-2020 for both offshore and onshore, in a bid to hit its three million barrels per day output target by 2023, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said yesterday.

Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, said the bidding round would be launched after the government had concluded talks with foreign oil companies on new fiscal terms for oil exploration following recent amendments to the law.

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, had hinted that the government would hold an oil licensing round in 2020.

Kyari said this at the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE)’s 37th yearly conference and exhibition’s pre-conference workshop Lagos, yesterday.

Industry stakeholders had raised concerns about the large number of idle oil blocks in Nigeria, as no licensing round had been conducted since 2007.

Out of 390 oil blocks in the country, 211 are yet to be allocated by the Federal Government, according to data obtained from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).

On his part, NAPE president, Ajibola Oyebamiji, stated that with the new era of disruption blowing across virtually all industries, now is the time to embrace new technology, as sustained low oil prices is driving the adoption of digitalisation across the oil and gas industry.

He said: “Technology is the heart of all the significant achievements in the oil and gas industry. The way hydrocarbon is discovered, developed and produced, has been impacted by evolutionary technologies that have emerged since the Drake well of 1859. But the challenge is how far Nigeria has travelled down the technology road.”