February For Nigeria’s Fresh Oil Bloc Sales
By Joe Onyeukwu
 15th JAN 2007

The Energy Minister, Edmund Daukoru, has indicated that the bid for the sale of Nigeria's offshore oil blocs, suspended last year, has tentatively been fixed for around the middle of February. Last December, The Federal Government suspended the sale of about 65 oil blocs. In a recent statement, the honourable minister said, "The bid round will come up at about the middle of February. This is however tentative," he stated. "There are one or two things we are putting together ahead of the bid round. It is still premature to say the exact number of bloc to be put on sale", he said. He also said that the new government policy gives preference to companies that agree to invest in the downstream sector of the industry.

Nigeria, which derives more than 95 per cent of its foreign exchange earnings from oil, hopes to realise about $500 million from the bloc bid round. Often, it is the foreign investors who participate in the bid rounds as most local companies lack access to the level of funds required for that level of investment.

The country normally produces about 2.6 million barrels of oil per day but a quarter of this has been affected in the past months due to restiveness in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Nigeria, Africa's largest producer, lost more than half a million barrels a day last year due to unrest by those who want to see more of the earnings put back into the local communities.

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