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The Federal Government said Nigeria left over 40million barrels fallow in 11 fields for 17years.
It also said that of 7,000 oil reserves that have been discovered in the country, only 1,700 of the reserves are currently producing crude oil.
Director of DPR, Department of Petroleum Resources,, Auwalu Sarki, who disclosed this in Abuja while handing over licenses to successful winners of the 2020 marginal oil. I round, expressed optimism over 100 million barrels would be grown in few months following the entry of new investors in the fields.
He added measures were being put in place to produce oil from additional reserves in order to achieve the 40 billion barrels oil reserves target of government.
Nigeria,he said,has the capacity to produce about three million barrels of crude daily.
He said:“We identified all the discovered reserves. We have about 7,000 and we are producing from about 1,700 out of the 7,000 already discovered reservoirs.”
He added, “We took each of the producing reservoirs to see what kind of Enhance Oil Recovery that we need to put. So once we now put the EOR, that is secondary and tertiary recovery methods, technically we will grow the reserves.This is because those reserves are recoverable now and technically we will increase the production of the country.”
He said the fields would boost Nigeria’s daily oil production capacity beyond the current three million barrels per day.
He explained that after undergoing lengthy and vigorous process, 161 companies were shortlisted as potential awardees out of which 50 percent have met all conditions.
He promised that the DPR would not abandon the companies after the award but would work with them to ensure immediate development and attainment of first oil in record time.
He said: “The journey began exactly one year ago, 1stJune 2020 with the launching of the Bid round registration portal. The portal eased the registration and application process and ensured a transparent exercise.
“It also provided the platform for the virtual data room. It is important to state that the industry-enabled National Data Repository (NDR) provided all the requisite technical and logistics support for the successful conduct of the exercise”.
He said DPR would ensure that the indigenous companies face minimal challenges from the International Oil Companies, the original lease owners for the fields.
He explained that the challenges that hindered the attainment of full development of the last marginal fields award 17 years have been considered and tackled.
Speaking on behalf of the bid winners, the Chairman of Vhelblerg, Bank Anthony Okoroafor thanked DPR for holding a transparent bid exercise.
“It was open to everybody, there was communication established with everybody and they did their own work very well”, he stated.
He urged the DPR to support the winning firms by talking to IOCs to allow the operators use their facilities if it is the most effective options.
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