DPR, Niger Delta communities bicker over marginal oil bid round

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and some communities in the Niger Delta have differed over the planned auction of the 57 marginal oil bid round billed to kick off in the country later in the year.

Niger Delta communities have made its intention known to the Federal Government that the region should be given preference in the bid round or else it would stop the process through litigation.

At a joint press conference on Sunday, the Ijaw and Itsekiri people of Gbaramatu and Ugborodo in Warri SouthWest ,Delta state reiterated their total rejection of the recently announced 57 marginal fields offered by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).

They said: “We can no longer continue to sit down and watch outsiders, being offered oil mining licenses in our homelands, when we have capable Gbaramatu and Itsekiri sons as well as daughters, whose firms are qualified, but repeatedly denied such licenses by the sustained -structural bias of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and its subsidiaries such as the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)

Puncturing the demand of the group, Engr.Sarki Auwalu, Director of Department of Petroleum Resources said, Nigeria is a country of national unity and Niger Delta is part of the history contributing immensely to development of the country.

Source: Independent