I am one of those that strongly condemned the action of the minister of state for Petroleum resources, Timipre Sylva on grounds stated below. One, the minister cannot arbitrarily revoke or renew an Oil Prospecting or Mining License OPL/OML. Two, the minister does not have discretionary power to award or allocate a revoked OPL/OML3.The minister should put the interest of the nation first above the interest of any individual or company. Marginal fields allocation list approved by the President is questionable.
The contractor/operator signed a Joint Venture (JV) or Production Sharing Contract (PSC) agreement with NNPC not DPR. DPR can only revoke or renew a JV or PSC agreement on recommendation from NNPC. This process was neglected by the minister. If for the above reason the license is revoked, the Blocks OPL/OML shall go for competitive bidding to determine its true value. It’s economic sabotage to assign a block free without competitive bids especially Oil and Gas Producing Block. Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) divested 45% of these Assets OML 29 $1.7billion, OML 30 $1.29billion, recently OML17 $533Million. (See Table attached). How can Sylva justify giving out four producing assets to Kaztec Engineering/Salvic Petroleum Resources for free when Nigerian government is in dire need of revenue and borrowing massively to finance its budget?
Secondly, Timi Sylva set up a predetermined Inter Ministerial Committee to inject government revenue to the tune of $650 million in a fabrication yard. Even now government is looking for funds for health care, security, etc. He took to FEC for approval multibillion dollar DPR Headquarters. All of the above are not reform agenda or in the Interest of the government. Finally successful companies in the marginal field were not attached to the companies in the document sent to the President for approval. These made room for manipulation and fraud. If you pay money then you will be paired and allocated fields. I challenge the minister to publish the list as approved by the President. From the above it’s obvious that the Minister of State, DPR Director were acting in their own personal interests. Their actions if implemented will deprive the country billions of dollars in revenue.
Manga Enwezoh, henwezoh@aol.com
