DPR extends bid for gas flare commercialisation

A few days after the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), announced that over 200 bidders were competing for the available 45 gas flaring sites in Nigeria, the agency has extended the timeline for the submission of bids by six weeks.

According to DPR, the extension, now due April 10, is “Sequel to the Bidder’s conference, which held on the 17th February 2020, in respect of the Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP) bid process.”

As a result, “the Bid Submission Due Date (BSDD) of the Request for Proposal (REP) has been extended by six weeks. Accordingly, the new submission due date shall be 10th April 2020,” it added.

DPR, in a statement yesterday, also urged “qualified applicants to note that inputs, comments and observations on the draft Gas Sales Agreement (DSA), Milestone Development Agreement (MDA), Connection Agreement (CA), and Deliver or Pay Agreement (DoPA), posted on the portal are expected on or before 5th March, 2020.
“Furthermore, the Department shall provide relevant updates for data prying and leasing in the Data Room as necessary within the next one week. Also, in a bid to further incentivize the programme, the minimum floor price for flare gas includes $0.25/mscf for land sites, $0.15/mscf for swamp and shallow offshore sites and $0.10/mscf for deep offshore.”
 
The Department had said about 200 bidders were selected based on quality, quantity and capacity they have to deliver on projects timely.The Director, DPR, Sarki Auwalu, had at a stakeholders’ engagement on national gas flare commercialisation programme to eliminate gas flaring and create value from gas in Lagos, said the emergence of preferred bidders is on and would take about 60 days after which the bidders must have given a timeframe for completed projects.

In his words, “There are 200 bidders that have been shortlisted where over 800 bided. We looked at the capacity, the quantity and quality of what they have. These 200 bidders are competing for 45 gas flaring sites for now and there are other flaring sites coming onboard. This also shows that the world is interested in Nigeria because of the potential. Ordinarily, we did not expect that much even though we disqualified over 600.”

According to him, over 200 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas has been discovered with Nigeria producing over 800 billion on a daily basis, pointing out that the gas industry is filled with opportunities begging for local and foreign investments.

“We currently have over 200 trillion CBF of gas already discovered, and we produce 800 billion daily where utilise some percentage of it while we export some other percentage and about 11 per cent being flared. We are taking that 11 per cent, which is part of Nigeria’s commitment that we signed in 2015 in Paris,” he said.