The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has increased the number of companies awarded the contract to lift Nigeria’s crude oil this year, to 27, from the 21 originally awarded the contract in 2015, documents obtained from the corporation revealed.
The State-run oil firm, had in December 2015, announced that the contract for the lifting of its 950,000 barrels per day crude oil had been awarded to 21, out of the 278 companies that participated in the bidding process in 2015.
The contract was to run from January 2016 to December 2016. However, in the document from its Crude Oil Marketing Division, COMD, released on its website on Thursday, October 13, the NNPC increased the number of companies to 27 without explanations as to why the number was expanded and without stating the criteria used in selecting the six companies among the 257 companies that were not successful in the bid process.
Also, the inclusion of the six companies becomes questionable, in view of Nigeria’s dwindling crude oil output, in the face of the crisis in the Niger Delta.
Prior to announcement in December, the NNPC had disclosed that only 16 companies would be awarded the contract, but it ended up awarding it to 21 companies, also without any explanation as to why the participants were increased In the new list, the six additional companies that were not mentioned in the initial document released to the public are: Taleveras Petroleum Trading, Masters Energy, Sacoil Energy Equity Resources Limited, Strategic Fuel Fund, Sinopec (UNIPEC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited.
