Awards Next Week, Dow Jones Says

The Dow Jones News Service says awards in the Nigeria-Sao Tomne and Principe Joint Development Zone will be made next week, ending months of uncertainty.

Here is the welcome news:

Sao Tomean-Nigerian Block Awards Made Next Week -Official

ABUJA (Dow Jones) -- Block awards for the first-ever licensing round for the Sao Tomean-Nigerian Joint Development Zone will be made next week, a Sao Tomean official has told Dow Jones Newswires.

Carlos Gomes, Sao Tome's chief representative on the two countries' Joint Exploration Authority, said the awards will be made next week, after the Joint Ministerial Council meeting on Apr. 25. Gomes was speaking on the sidelines of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference in Abuja.

"Companies will be given two weeks to accept or reject the awards," said Gomes. "When they accept offers, we will start negotiations."

Gomes denied suggestions that the authorities operating the licensing round were unhappy with ExxonMobil's (XOM) recent decision not to exercise its preferentials right in the JDZ.

"We are not disappointed with that at all," he said.

The licensing round process for the JDZ, a jointly-held maritime region between Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe, has been ongoing since April 2003. The licensing round itself closed on Dec. 15 2004, with 26 bids from 23 companies being received for the five JDZ oil and gas blocks on offer, but the block awards have met with continual delays.

-By Vincent Nwanma, Dow Jones Newswires; +234-1-585-0849; vinwanma@beta.linkserve.com

Note: Dow Jones filed a correction to note that this is not the "first-ever" but the second licensing round in the JDZ. Round 1 ended with the award of one block last October. Five blocks (2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) are offered in this round.

Update, 9:35am EST, 4/19/05: Reacting swiftly to the positive news, investors pushed the price of ERHC Energy (OTC BB symbol: ERHE) up $0.03 in the first five minutes of trading on volume of 41,000 shares.

Update, 10:04am EST, 4/19/05: The volume has risen to 135,000 shares and the Bid is now $0.65 and Ask is $0.66. It's a relatively slow start to what should end as a day of major gains.

Update, 10:22am EST, 4/19/05: The Bid has now moved to $0.651, and the price is up $0.4 to $0.66, the Ask, on 146,365 shares of volume.

Update, 3:35pm EST, 4/19/05: The price stands at $0.66, while the Bid is $0.64. The volume is low at 587,184. As of 15 minutes ago, there were a total of 169 trades, with Buys of 301,358 outpacing Sells of 201,065 by 2:1, with 77,761 unidentified.