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Nigeria, Sao Tome withdraw three oil blocks from auction
AFP
LISBON
Petroleumworld.com 04 10 06Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe have withdrawn from auction the last three of nine offshore oil exploration blocks found in an area shared by both nations due to a lack of interest by oil firms, a senior Sao Tome official said Friday.
The head of the tiny island state's National Petroleum Agency, Luis dos Prazeres, blamed the lack of market interest in the three block on the fact that they are located in deep waters where it is more difficult and expensive to prospect for oil.
The three blocks will probably go up for auction again in six or seven years when exploration is already under way in the other six blocks in the two nation's Joint Development Zone (JDZ), he told the Lusa news agency.
"For now the auction process in the joint area is complete," he said.
Under the terms of a 2001 agreement that established the JDZ, Nigeria is entitled to 60 percent of all oil and gas revenues from the formerly disputed waters while Sao Tome, a former Portuguese colony, gets 40 percent.
Huge oil deposits have been detected in the waters off Sao Tome since 1995 which have stirred international interest but so far the tiny archipelago of less 200,000 people has yet to feel the results of an expected oil boom.
Some studies suggest the islands, which gained independence from Portugal in 1975, sit on between six and 11 billion barrels of crude oil.
AFP 04 07 06 1647 GMTCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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