The Managing Director of Seplat Petroleum, Mr Austin Avuru, last Monday said marginal fields were the first step to achieving meaningful indigenous participation in the Oil and Gas sector.

Avuru made the observation at the Nigerian Marginal Field Workshop in Lagos with the theme: “Changing the Game to Deliver a Producing Asset”.

“A marginal field is exploration plant which has oil and gas reserves reported at the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and have remained un-produced for a minimum of 10 years.

“Usually, marginal fields are portions of the oil blocks given to large companies which contain reserves.

“But, they have not been developed due to various reasons, mostly, economic consideration,” he said.

Avuru said that the ability of the indigenous operators to ensure sustainability of marginal field’s production was paramount.

“Today, marginal field is recording success, but the question is, in the next 10 years from now, how many indigenous producers will still be active in it,” he asked.

Avuru said that if long-term domestic energy security could be taken over by indigenous exploration and producing companies, the oil and gas industry would record more growth.

He said that indigenous participation should be a national priority.

“If the full spectrum of small to mid-size production will be largely indigenous and the aggregate of all production should be taken over by the indigenous operators, the sector will improve,” Avuru said.

The Managing Partner, Lonadek Petroleum, Mr Abiodun Adeola, said that there was need for collaboration between the independent marketers and NNPC for share values and win-win partnership.

“The domestic energy security has fallen on indigenous operators in terms of strategic production, LPG, natural gas, refining and petroleum product distribution of the entire downstream,” he said.

Adeola urged the operators to take the opportunity by ensuring that they worked with marginal fields that were willing and had the capacity to develop and derive the sector.