Nigeria Closes Second Round Bidding for Crude-for-Fuel Swaps

Rotimi Morgan/

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) ended a second of bidding for 2017 crude-for-oil product swap contracts this week, oil industry sources have revealed.
NNPC said it initially received 128 bids for the contracts, dubbed “direct sale, direct purchase” (DSDP), when the initial round of bidding closed on February 2.
Sources told Reuters that NNPC decided to invite some bidders to move forward to a second round
The winners of the contracts will be eligible to swap at least 30,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in exchange for gasoline, diesel or kerosene.
NNPC had previously announced it plans to exchange as much as 800,000 bpd of crude in 2017
Sources expect NNPC to award the contracts, which aim to swap oil for products from April 1, before the end of this month.
The 2016 contracts were awarded to seven oil refineries, including ENI, Essar, Litasco, Total, Cepsa, Societe Ivorienne de Raffinage (SIR) and Vitol’s refining arm Varo, with local partners
Under the 2016 contracts, each refiner agreed to ship roughly 90,000 tonnes of gasoline in exchange for each 950,000-barrel cargo of oil, amounting to a swap of 330,000 bpd of crude in total