Chevron was the standout international winner in Nigeria’s latest oil licensing round, securing Petroleum Prospecting Licence 2010 in a bid process that wrapped up on Tuesday evening in Abuja.

The US supermajor was one of 31 companies, nearly all of them indigenous firms, awarded 37 of the 50 blocks on offer. In all, 143 companies submitted 200 bids for the 37 blocks across proven onshore, shallow-water and deepwater Niger Delta acreage as well as four frontier onshore basins — Benin, Anambra, Chad and Benue Trough — with 13 tracts failing to attract any bids.

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, which ran the process, said the frontier basins drew an unprecedented level of investor interest. For Chevron, PPL 2010 was a strategic prize: the acreage sits in water depths of 200 to 700 metres, is fully covered by 3D seismic data the company acquired years earlier, and lies close to its major Agbami field and its Ikija discovery, which could be appraised later this year.

Source: orientalnewsng.com