The Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority (LPRA) has pre-qualified seven Liberian companies out of the nine that expressed interest in the ongoing Offshore License Round for the Harper Basin.

The evaluation panel denied two companies a chance on grounds for lack of legal and financial competence. The team that evaluated comprised of representatives from the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL), the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Ministry of Finance, Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) and the Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority (LPRA).

The successful companies are DEMUS Exploration and Production, Jungle Energy Power INC, New Millennium Oil and Gas, Africa Oil and Gas Inc, Green Petroleum (Liberia) Limited, MAC-Africa Petroleum Inc and the TSC Global Inc.

The bid rounds commenced in April and will run until February 2021. The pre-qualification of Liberian companies is in line with the country’s New Petroleum Law that mandates a minimum 5% equity interest in all petroleum agreements to companies owned by natural persons of Liberian citizenship.

The list of successful companies will be submitted to the qualified international bidders for a possible partnership, in fulfilment of the amended petroleum law.

There are nine unexplored and undrilled oil offshore blocks in the Harper Basin up for bidding.

The pre-qualification process ended on July 31st, after an appeal from the Liberian business community to the LPRA to consider the COVID-19 pandemic and not close the process on 30th of June as earlier scheduled.

In June, the LPRA held a meeting with representatives of the Liberia Business Association (LIBA), Liberia Chambers of Commerce (LCC) and the Patriotic Entrepreneurs of Liberia (PATEL) to enlighten members on the processes involved, and the importance of Liberian companies actively participating in the licensing round.