|
untitled
Last Updated: Monday, November 15th, 2004 HOME | Previous Page
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nigeria, Sao Tome JDA opens new licensing round today
By Bassey Udo
Snr Correspondent, Abuja
The Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Authority (JDA) is to open a new licensing round for the call
for bids for the award of fresh oil blocs in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) today.
This is in line with the directive handed down by the Joint Ministerial Council (JMC), which gave it December as
deadline for the award of fresh oil blocs.
At the eighth meeting of the Council held in Abuja on October 28 and 29, JDA was directed to formally announce
the termination of the 2003 JDZ licensing round to pave way for the setting up of the processes for the conduct
of the second.
At the end of the first licensing round held in April 2003, Chevron Nigeria Limited, the exploration and production
company of Chevron Texaco Corporation in Nigeria, emerged winner of the premier Bloc-1, out of the nine on offer.
The meeting, which also acknowledged the concerns of the two governments on the need for additional oil blocs to
be awarded in the zone, said this would not only help generate the desired level of activity in the area, but would
also bring the revenue required to fulfil the aspirations of their people.
During the planned licensing round, only four of the seven oil blocs left after the 2003 Licensing Round would
be up for bids. Blocs 7, 8 and 9 would be excluded from the bid for technical reasons. Apart from the concession
awarded to Chevron and its partners, one other bloc was considered not mature to be put up for bids.
Daily Independent learnt that the three oil blocs, located in the zone�s ultra deep-water concessions, had to be
excluded since the JDA still requires to carry out extensive three-dimensional seismic data collection activities
on them to determine their resource component.
As in the 2003 licensing round, next week�s licensing round would be conducted without prejudice to the rights
to any of the blocs already exercised by Environmental Remediation Holding Corporation (ERHC) and validated by
JDA, as well as the pre-emptive rights of ExxonMobil in the zone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright? 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Independent Newspapers Limited
Block5, Plot 7D, Wempco Road, Ogba, P.M.B. 21777, Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria.
www.independentng.com
e-mail: [email protected]
Designed By
Powered By DNet.
|
|
