FG Commits to Hitch-free Approval of Gas Flare Sites to Bidders
-By Gideon Osaka
The federal government has promised to ensure a hitch-free approval of gas flare sites to bidders who emerged successful in the bid stages of its market-based gas flare-out plan under the Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP).
Mr. Andrew Ogu Ogi, Director of Special Duties in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and Alternate Chairman of NGFCP, stated that the government would engage the successful bidders in a seminar to ensure a win-win closure to the deals.
He said in a statement that the bidders have been invited for the seminar expected to hold later in August, in Abuja, and from where part of steps to the next stage of the NGFCP would commence.
Speaking on the planned seminar, the Program Manager of NGFCP, Mr. Justice Derefaka, stated that it would be centred on, ‘regulatory framework, incentives, best practices and understanding the Request for Proposal phase’ to boost investors’ and qualified applicants’ appetite in the NGFCP. “You’ll recall that over 850 interested parties registered their interest in the NGFCP while 238 applicants submitted SOQs in response to the Request for Qualification (RfQ) published by the ministry of petroleum resources.
“And then total of 238 SOQ documents were evaluated in accordance with the provisions of applicable regulations, guidelines, standard industry best practices for bid evaluation, and were adjudged either a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ status.
“Following a rigorous exercise conducted in line with established protocol and using the Electronic Evaluation Tool (EET), 205 applicants emerged successful while the remaining 33 applicants did not meet the minimum requirements and thus attained fail status,” said Derefaka.
He further stated: “These stages are being followed by the federal government to ensure due process and efficiency in all necessary aspect of the gas commercialisation drive of the ministry of petroleum resources.
“And, showcase FG incentives through the Nigerian Investment promotion commission (NIPC) that the QA could key into as well as local content requirements, stakeholder management in the Niger Delta, compliance with other oil and gas permits and consents and community relations management learnings from IOCs on their corporate governance strategy, contexts, issues, challenges, success stories and lessons learnt.”
Derefaka, explained that the seminar is expected to have a good number of industry resource persons to help the qualified companies get through the expectations of the programme.
He said for instance: “For FOSTER (Facility for Oil Sector Transparency and Reform in Nigeria), they are helping the NGFCP to adopt Conflict Sensitive Business Practices (CSBP) which is necessary to help gas flare companies improve bankability of their projects.
“So, we want to showcase one of the CSBP tools, one of which is Macro-Level Conflict Risk and Impact Assessment (M-CRIA). For us at the NGFCP we believe this could be used in different stages: pre-feasibility, tendering or implementation of the NGFCP programme.”
