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04/20/2004 Dow Jones News Services

ABUJA (Dow Jones)--The long-delayed awards of nine offshore oil blocks shared between Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe will be announced soon, possibly this week, the head of the joint development authority overseeing the tenders said Tuesday.

"We look to having results out towards the end of this week," Tajudeen Umar, chairman of the of the authority said in a speech at an oil and gas conference here.

The Joint Development Authority, made up of government
representatives of Nigeria and Sao Tome has delayed for nine months announcing who will get the licenses for the blocks estimated to hold as much as 14.4 billion barrels of oil.

The blocks will be distributed after ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) and Nigerian company Environmental Remediation Holding Corp. exercise their preemptive rights on the blocks.

ChevronTexaco Corp. (CVX) and Statoil ASA (STO) were the only majors to bid.

The authority will try to distribute licenses evenly with
international and local companies sharing blocks, Umar said. About a third of the bids went to block 1, thought to be the richest in oil deposits.

Umar said production sharing agreements and operating agreements
could completed by the end of June.

Umar said oil is expected to be produced from the zone in last
quarter of 2007.

-By Vincent Nwanma, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone];
vinwanma@b...

(Shai Oster in London contributed to this article.)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires