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FG Sets Up Committee to Monitor Oil Blocks Award
By Crusoe Osagie, 12.11.2006

The Federal Government has set up a monitoring committee to review the activities of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) mostly relating to activities of award of oil and gas assets.
The committee comes on stream even as the Federal Government, at the weekend, reinstated Dr. Tony Chukwueke as Director of the oil and gas industry watchdog, after he was sacked recently in controversial circumstances.
THISDAY gathered that the mandate of the new committee would be to monitor and review the activities of DPR especially in the area of block award before the final review and approval by the President.
The Minister of States for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Edmund Daukoru is the chairman of the committee whose members include the DPR Director, Chukwueke, a representative of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Solicitor General and an official from the presidency.
On the reinstatement of Chukwueke, THISDAY gathered that the Transnational Corporation, which triggered the controversy that led to the initial removal of Chukwueke has since written to withdraw its petition against him.
Following the allegations of improper handling of the award of OPL 291, President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the constitution of a panel of enquiry to look into it and ordered the removal of Chukwueke as DPR Director.
The panel of enquiry was constituted November 13 to investigate the activities surrounding the controversial award of the block to Starcrest.
The controversy blew open when Addax Petroleum announced that it had agreed to pay $90 million to take control of Oil Prospecting License (OPL) 291, an oil block that was not in the basket for bids at the open auction of May.
According to Addax, it acquired its interest in the block from Starcrest, an obscure Nigerian company.
OPL 291 represents the mandatory relinquishment area of OPL 216 following conversion of OPL 216 to Oil Mining Lease ("OML") 127 preceding the development of the Agbami field in OML127 by Chevron.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Ransome Owan has announced that another four companies have been scrutinised by the commission and would be issued power licenses soon.
Owan told THISDAY in Lagos that the four new companies would join the nine companies already licensed by the commission to generate, transmit or distribute power in the country between August and December 2006.
"Nine companies have completed the process and have been issued licenses and four others are in the pipeline and soon the four new companies will be issued licenses to operate in the power sector”, he said.
"You would notice that the companies that have just been licensed are companies that will do relatively lower capacity. Others to be licensed soon will be doing higher capacity and as such it has taken a longer time to assess their application and approve their licenses," he added.
He said the commission had also set milestones for licensed companies to measure their level of seriousness with their planned projects.
He added that any licensed company that does not keep pace with the NERC's milestones would have their licenses revoked.
"We have set milestones for licensed companies and companies that do not keep pace with the milestones set for them will have their liceses revoked. Also the license has a 10 years incubation period, which means that if a company leaves its license inactive for 10 years it will loose the license," he said.

http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=65421