Nigeria: No oil round till Q3

Senior government and industry sources tell Nigeria Focus there won't be an oil licensing round in Nigeria earlier than the third quarter of 2011. According to these sources, President Goodluck Jonathan has been persuaded to rescind his earlier decision to conduct a new oil licensing round, which had previously been scheduled to take place between August and December 2010.

The delay was argued for on the grounds that it would probably be as unsuccessful as the round held before the 2007 elections by former president Olusegun Obasanjo: few awards were converted to production sharing contracts and major companies hesitated to participate for political reasons.

On several occasions last year, Minister of Petroleum Resources Deziani Allison-Madueke had offered reassurance that a new oil licensing round would indeed take place in 2010. She has, however, been silent recently on the issue of the licensing round.

The new licensing round is expected to be mainly for marginal oil fields and the Department of Petroleum Resources, the agency responsible for organising licensing rounds, is reported to have submitted a list of 38 marginal oil fields to the minister for consideration; she will in turn forward the list to the president for his final approval. The marginal fields up for grabs in the licensing round belong to the existing upstream joint ventures with major companies.

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