First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round 2009 bidders

On 17 March 2009, the Ministry of Mines, on behalf of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, launched the First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round 2009 to initiate hydrocarbon exploration in Northern Afghanistan.

Companies were required to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to pre-qualify to participate in the bidding round by 15June 2009. Besides being eligible and qualified as per Articles 30 and 31 of the Hydrocarbons Law, bidders were required to have a market capitalization of at least USD100 million for Kashkari block, USD150 million for Juma-Bashikurd, Jangalikalan blocks and USD200 million for all three blocks. Additionally, applicants must have experience in production of sour gas in order to bid for the Juma-Bashikurd and Jangalikalan blocks.

First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round 2009 blocks offered
Blocks	Basin	Discovered fields
Jangalikalan	Amu Dar’ya	Jangalikalan gas field
Juma-Bashikurd	Amu Dar’ya	Jumar, Bashikurd gas fields
Kashkari	Amu Dar’ya	Angoat, Aq Darya, Kashkari oil fields

By 15 June 2009, 11 companies had submitted EOIs and eight companies were announced as pre-qualified bidders on 1July 2009. The list of pre-qualified bidders is as follows:

List of pre-qualified bidders
Company	Country of origin
Addax Petroleum	Switzerland
Turkiye Petrolleri A.O. Genel Mudurlugu (TPAO)	Turkey
Sinochem Petroleum Exploration & Production Co. Ltd.	China
Total Exploration & Production	France
Orient Petroleum International Inc’s (OPII)	UAE
Redwood Petroleum Co, Ltd	China
Zurmat Group of Companies Nations Petroleum Calgary Canada	Afghanistan/Canada
Oil & Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL)	Pakistan

The following companies were not qualified to bid in the round:

List of non-qualified bidders
Company	Country of origin
Calik Enerji	Turkey
AfghCana Energy (Asia) Corp. ("AfghCana")	Afghanistan/Canada
Ghazanfar Group Co Ltd	Afghanistan

Pre-qualified bidders have to submit their bids by 15 September 2009. The result of the bidding round is expected to be announced by 5 October 2009 with the Exploration and Production Sharing Contracts (EPSC) signed no later than 5 December 2009. Details of the round are available from the Ministry of Mines (www.mom.gov.af/) or (www.afghanistanpetroleum.com).

Map: Blocks on offer in the First Afghan Bidding Round 2009 (blue outline) Source: PetroView®

The geology of Afghanistan is structurally complicated, essentially consisting of a succession of narrow north-east trending terrains of continental fragments of Palaeozoic to Tertiary age. The four principal areas in Afghanistan where thick sedimentary rocks are present are; the North Afghan Basin, the Amu Dar’ya Basin and the Afghan-Tajik Basins in the north, the Helmand Basin in south-west, the Katawaz Area in the south-east and the Heart Basin in the west. Most of the discoveries are located in the Amu Dar’ya basin in the northern part of Afghanistan. The Amu Dar’ya basin extends north-westward into Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, forming the successful Amu Dar’ya gas-oil province.

Oil and gas exploration commenced in Afghanistan in 1956 and the first oil field, Angoat, was discovered in 1959. Subsequently, the Yatimtaq gas field was discovered in 1960 followed by the Khwaja Gogerdaq gas field in 1961 and Khwaja Bulan gas field in 1964. Despite the concentration of exploration activity in the Amu Dar’ya Basin, the portion of the basin in Afghanistan is relatively under-explored in comparison with the Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan counterparts.

One of the primary objectives of the government in launching the bidding round is to commence production and processing of the identified gas reserves to meet current and future demands for energy and related products and activities. Early production of oil is also a priority and oil companies are recommended to gauge the hydrocarbon potential both inside and outside of the known hydrocarbon accumulations on each block on offer.

Petroleum Services

First Afghan Hydrocarbon Bidding Round 2009 bidders