Sudan has so far received ten bids from companies to explore new oil and gas blocks and wants to boost gas exploration to meet rising power demand, a top oil official said.
The African country is seeking to overcome an economic crisis after losing three-quarters of 490,000 barrels a day of output when South Sudan became independent in July.
To replace the loss of southern oil the oil ministry has launched bidding for Blocks 8, 10, 12B, 14, 15 and 18 spread across the vast country.
Around 60 firms from China, other Asian countries and Europe as well as North and South America such as Brazil had expressed interest of which ten submitted bids, State Oil Minister Ishaq Adam Gamaa told Reuters.
“The round bidding for the six blocks is going well,” he said in an interview on Sunday, without giving names of companies. The bidding deadline will expire at the end of March.
Mainly Chinese and Malaysian state firms operate in Sudan which produces 115,000 barrels a day.
Analysts have expressed doubts Sudan will make significant new finds and struggle to boost exploration unless the security situation improves. Some new blocks are located in areas where the army is fighting rebels such as Blue Nile state.
Gamaa also said Sudan wants to produce much more gas to help meeting rising local demand for power and cooking gas, starting with South Kordofan, its main oil-producing state.
“Gas is not a focus of the operating companies for the time being but we want to make some arrangements to make more focus on gas,” he said.
“Right now we have a considerable amount of gas already known,” he said, adding that a 400 megawatt power plant in al-Fula in South Kordofan would go online by 2013.
