Britannia-U, First Hydrocarbon, SEPLAT, Seven Energy, Sogenal, South Atlantic Petroleum (SAPETRO) and Vertex, and are all said to be among local players that are expected to put in a final bid, though all are keeping mum about the transaction.

Bidders for the three OMLs were shortlisted in August after an initial invitation was issued by Chevron to 20 companies. The bidding process was later opened up to more companies after a great deal of scrambling by oil companies who see the international oil company (IOC) divestments as the perfect opportunity to get their hands on producing assets.  

A preferred shortlist emerged in mid August enabling the preferred bidders to do more in-depth due diligence and finalise their bids. They are now expected to submit their bids by the 30th of September and to pay 15 per cent of their bids as a deposit. Chevron is said to prefer to sell the three OMLs in one lot and has already weeded out bidders who were not interested in acquiring all three assets.

OML 52 is a 246 square kilometre block, while OML 53 is a huge 1,554 square kilometres and OML 55 is 722.40 square kilometres. The three blocs are said to have total oil reserves of around 134 million barrels and five trillion cubic feet of gas, with the combined values of the three blocks being estimated currently at between US$500mn and US$600mn.

The bid amounts may be affected by NNPC's recent declaration that bidders should not expect to assume operatorship as the role, currently fulfilled by Chevron in the blocks will revert to NNPC following the divestment. Before that, it had been assumed that NNPC might not seek operatorship of the assets, as they seem to have their hands full after taking over operatorship of the blocks divested by Shell.  

Nevertheless, some analysts are expecting the bids to be very high indeed - over $1 billion some say, with Reuters reporting that a bid as high as $1.7 billion by one company has already been submitted for the three assets. Some sources are however saying that the more credible bids have been around the estimated value of the three blocks.

Chevron operates and holds a 40 per cent interest in 13 concessions, predominantly in the onshore and near-offshore regions of the Niger Delta. The concessions cover approximately 2.2 million acres (8,900 sq km) and are operated under a joint-venture arrangement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which owns a 60 per cent interest. The company also holds acreage in ten deep-water blocks, four of which it operates, with working interests ranging from 18 per cent to 100 per cent in the blocks. In 2012, net daily production averaged 238,000 barrels of crude oil, 165 million cubic feet of natural gas and 4,000 barrels of LPG.

Chevron also has two other blocks, OML 82 and OML 85, up for sale but they will be sold in a separate bidding process. The sale of the two assets, which has not been received with as much enthusiasm as the other three, is to be conducted as a one-day auction, possibly for that very reason. 

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Whilst all eyes have been focussed on the Chevron sale and the long-awaited marginal fields licensing round, which has been "imminent" for most of this year, FBN Capital has been quietly conducting the sale of a 40 per cent stake in the Ubima and Otakikpo marginal fields. FBN Capital is expected to announce the winner of the bids for the two marginal fields.  

Otakikpo Field is located in oil mining lease (OML) 17 while Ubima Creek Field is in OML 11, both Shell OMLs. The muted auction for the two fields is unsurprising given the circumstances of their award in non-competitive allocations in 2010 to Green Energy and All Grace Energy respectively under the Obasanjo presidency. It has been widely reported that Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, daughter of the former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo is the majority shareholder in All Grace Energy.  

Former Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Osten Olorunsola, defended the award of the fields last year when news of the quite discretionary awards emerged to great opprobrium, saying that it was within the President's discretionary powers. The terms of the grant of the marginal fields to the two companies include a commitment by each grantee to fund three pilot projects under a Public Private Partnership model.  

The search for both funding and technical partners by the two companies is to be expected given that neither has the financial backing nor the technical expertise to execute the projects. Previous attempts to secure partners in the projects failed but FBN Capital, First Bank's investment advisory firm, appears to have managed to get some interesting bids out of oil companies that have been starved of the opportunity to expand their acreage positions in Nigeria following unfulfilled promises of impending licensing rounds.

Some of those expected to have put in a bid are First E&P, Lekoil, Seplat and Vertex, all of which are also said to be on Chevron's preferred bidder list for its OMLs 52, 53 and 55 sale going on currently.

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Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has declared force majeure once again on supplies of Bonny Light exports and gas supply to NLNG effective September 23 as it shut down the Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) for the fifth time since early July due to multiple leaks from crude theft connections.  

The latest incident involves new crude oil theft leaks at Bodo West and Oloma. SPDC has, as a result deferred some 150,000 barrels of oil and 500 million standard cubic feet of gas per day. SPDC says it is working to repair and reopen the line as soon as possible.

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Oil prices continued to drop with fading worries over Syria and Iran helping to ease concern over supply from the Middle East. Higher output from Iraq also helped keep prices low. The price of OPEC basket of twelve crudes stood at $106.34 dollars a barrel on Thursday, compared with $106.53 the previous day as the general downward trend since the 29th of August when the basket price reached $112.80 continued. Brent crude slipped below below $109 on Friday as it headed for its third straight weekly loss.

According the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) the demand for gas to fuel the expected growth in Nigeria's power sector is expected to rise to 2,200 million standard cubic feet per day (mmcfd)by 2015. NNPC Group Executive Director, David Ige, representing the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Andy Yakubu, stated this at the Nigeria Investment Summit in New York. He said that gas supply to the power sector had grown from 620mmscf/d to about 920mmscfd between 2010 and 2013.

Speaking on the growth in demand, he said: "Supply grew at an average annual rate of 20 per cent in the last three years to 1500mmscfd. The non-power sector has almost doubled from 185mmscfd to 310mmscfd. Similarly, about 360-kilometre of gas pipelines have been completed and inaugurated."

A growth in demand for gas is also coming from the domestic sector. The huge investment in pipeline projects across the country will soon make it possible for homes to be linked to gas pipelines according to Ms Tumini Green, the acting Group General Manager, Public Affairs for NNPC.  

Ms Green said that gas is already being piped directly to homes on Shell's housing estates in Warri. She added that the ongoing trunk Calabar-Ajaokuta-Kano gas pipeline project will soon make it possible to provide gas through pipelines to homes and estates in Abuja.

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The Department of Petroleum Resources has said the normal process of renewal of oil marketers licenses will take off from October, 2013 to February 28, 2014 for the 2014/2015 licensing period.

The Operations Controller, DPR, Lagos Zone, Mr. Olugbenga Kuku, who said this in a statement on Wednesday advised marketers to prepare to submit their applications to renew their licences during the licensing exercise.

Kuku said, "We are advising retail outlets to submit all applications for renewal promptly so as to facilitate the early issuance of licences. Marketers who fail to renew their licences by February 28, 2014 may have their operations suspended."

Kuku also said the DPR would introduce more stringent penalties that will involve the revocation of licences of the marketers found engaging in malpractice in the petroleum product distribution network.

He said, "We observed during our routine inspections of retail outlets in the year that some marketers had yet to fully conform to some of government's directives. Some operators still operate with sub-standard price bill boards, even some choose to totally ignore the directive," he added.

The federal government has paid a total of N287 billion as subsidy on verified claims to marketers so far this year as it looks set to reduce the total subsidy bill this year by 56 per cent from N2.2 trillion in 2011 to N971 billion this year.

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said in a statement: "This administration has worked hard to clean up the process of subsidy payments."

Explaining how the federal government has managed to reduce the subsidy bill, she said in the statement: "We also hired new auditors and we put in place different checks and balances. As a result, last year, we brought subsidy payments down to about N950 billion, and we expect that this year, we will pay about N971 billion."

"I believe this is a huge achievement for which the Jonathan administration deserves some credit, something that should make Nigerians proud of their government," she added.

The claims were for May and April, 2013 batches and the marketers for April batch included AITEO Energy Resources Limited, Conoil Plc, Dee Jones Petroleum and Gas Ltd., Gulf Treasures Ltd., Forte Oil Plc, Integrated Oil and Gas Ltd., Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc, NIPCO Plc, Sahara Energy Resources Limited, and Swift Oil Line.

The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has issued a notice to interested professors, research fellows, post graduate students and subject matter experts interested in conducting applied research in the Nigerian oil and gas industry for 2014 projects to submit Expressions of Interest (EOI) to NCDMB.  

The EOI should provide details of previous oil ad gas related research work, areas of interest in the oil and gas industry, abstract stating how the applicant intends to linked he proposed research area with industry input requirements and the expected impact of the research area on the development of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. The Board will evaluate the EOI and assign successful applicants to research clusters being created for key areas of oil and gas developments.  

Applicants are required to register with NJQS via the website: http://portal.nogicjqs.com. The closing date for applications is 12 noon on the 28th of October 2013. All enquiries should be sent by email to: nogips@nsdmb.cgov.ng

Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCiN) has emerged "Best Company in Education" at the annual Social Enterprise Report and Awards (SERAs) ceremony held in Lagos on September 21, the third time they are being recognised for a social investment programme on that platform. SCiN were nominated in four categories, and was the only oil and gas companies that won any award at the 7th SERAs.

SCiN were cited for "determined efforts" to promote education in the Niger Delta and Nigeria through secondary and tertiary scholarship awards, sponsorship of eight university professional chairs in diverse disciplines and innovative programmes for teaching and learning of core subjects in secondary schools. They were also mentioned for construction of information, technology and communication centres in primary schools and universities around the country.

"We are happy at the recognition for our programmes," said General Manager Communications, Philip Mshelbila as he received the award. "This is a call to work harder not only on education but in the other areas of our social investment programme."   

SCiN won the SERAs for "Poverty Reduction" and "Child and Maternal Health" in 2010,  "Most Innovative CSR" in 2011 and in 2012, "Most Innovative CSR" and "Wealth and income Generation (Poverty Reduction)" awards.

Oil &Money

London, United Kingdom

1 - 2 October

Tanzania Mining, Energy/Power and Infrastructure INDABA Conference and Exhibition

Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

 2nd - 4th October 2013

http://www.tanzaniaindaba.com

The Africa Gas Association Inaugural Meeting

Nairobi, Kenya

13 - 15 October 2013

www.thefricagas.org

World Energy Congress

Daegu, South Korea

13 - 17 October

6th International E&P Upstream Conference

Houston, USA

16-17 October 2013

www.ziffenergy.com

Deep Offshore Technology International

Houston, United State of America

22 - 24 October

OTC Brasil

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

21 - 29 October 

www.otcbrasil.org  

Africa Oil & Gas Finance and Investment Forum

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

22-23 October 2013

www.aogfi.com

Oil and Gas Trade and Investment Forum 2013

Onne, Rivers State, Nigeria

24-25 October 2013

www.nigeriaoilandgasinvest.com