The DPR’s Nationwide Road Show for the 2013 Marginal Field Award Exercise drew to a close at the NICON Luxury Hotel, Abuja. The Road Show which was staged in four cities around the country revealed some interesting insights which are highlighted below:
- The deadline for pre-qualification applications may be in mid-January;
- Applications are to be made online – payments may also be made online if accepted by the Treasury. Discussions are ongoing for confirmation of mode of payment;
- Application forms may be available as early as next week;
- Prequalification structuring considerations – bidders will need to pay very close attention to the bidding vehicles to be utilized for the process. In particular, close attention needs to be paid to ensuring that Nigerian beneficial interest is not less than 51%. DPR will also give consideration to the number of individual promoters (minimum of 4) and in the case of consortia made up of companies, the shareholders in the individual promoter companies may not be less than 4;
- Each bidding vehicle must have a promoter with upstream exploration and production experience;
- Promoters may participate in not more than 2 companies;
- Technical partners may enter into a relationship with not more than 4 companies;
- All bidding vehicles must lease data; and
- Post-qualification financial considerations- in selecting the final winners DPR will be concerned to examine whether a bidding vehicle has shown a “line of sight” to finance. Bank support letters on their own will be insufficient. Bidding vehicles must show access to 20% of the expected cost of development for the marginal field estimated by DPR to be between US$ 80 million – US$ 100 million.
We shall keep you apprised on further developments in this regard.