Major oil producers Total, Eni and Heritage Oil have held meetings with the Afghanistan Mining Ministry to express interest and get information about upcoming oil tenders in Afghanistan, the country's mining minister said Friday. Afghanistan will tender the Kashkari oil block with an estimated 30 million barrels of oil in August or September, Wahidullah Shahrani said. The ministry will then tender oil blocks in the Afghan-Tajik basin in early 2011, he said. The basin is estimated to contain about 1.6 billion barrels of oil.
In Afghanistan's 1st International Bidding Round, only one bid was received for the Kashkari Block. The bid was filed on February 23 2010 by Orient Petroleum International. Afghanistan's evaluation committee voted unanimously to reject the bid. At the time, H.E. Minister Shahrani stated that the Ministry of Mines intended to repackage and retender Afghanistan’s hydrocarbon blocks at a later date, and noted that the Government of Afghanistan is fully committed to the highest degree of transparency in the tendering and awarding of every contract.
