With funding from GIZ, Revenue Development Foundation (RDF) has launched a new project supporting the government of Mali to improve the management of licenses in the petroleum sector.
With funding from GIZ, Revenue Development Foundation (RDF) launched in August an oil and gas cadastre administration project supporting the government of Mali, through l'Autorite pour la Promotion de la Recherche Petroliere au Mali (AUREP), to improve the management of licenses in the petroleum sector. A ceremony was hosted on Wednesday, 2 September, in Bamako, Mali, to officially start the Projet de Soutien à l’Amélioration de la Gestion des Titres Pétroliers. The project is part of the larger GIZ project PAGIE (Support for Extractive Industries Governance in Mali programme) which has three key components: 1) the improvement in the management of mining and petroleum licenses; 2) strengthening of the public finance system in the mining sector; 3) improving the impact of extractive industries on local economic development in mining areas. The RDF led project fits into the first component.
RDF will implement its RD Oil and Gas Administration System (OGAS) in AUREP, for management of all oil and gas licenses, documentation and payments. The project is implemented together with the already ongoing Mining Administration System Support Project, and the projects will together support improved management of Mali's mining and oil reserves. Joint implementation ensures coordinated management.
The project commenced with a technical evaluation of the work processes and procedures of AUREP and a thorough analysis of the recently enacted petroleum legislation. The allocation procedures for petroleum licenses have also been reviewed and the cadastral system OGAS will be configured based on the results of the evaluation. This system will be constantly improved and upgrades as the project proceedes, training sessions will be provided for the various types of users, and procedures for monitoring and compliance assurance will be implemented by the end of the year.
The three partners, AUREP, GIZ and RDF jointly decided to record all past license records from 2004 onwards, the year AUREP was established. The project will start with scanning and recording all valid and most recent titles. Transparency is important and a key output of the project is for all license data till be published on Ministry of Mines' online repository.