Nigeria gives more oil purchase deals to local firms as vote looms

(Fixes table format)

* More companies given contracts this year

* NNPC doubles number of local firms named

* Awards delayed this year, some blame looming vote

By Julia Payne and Libby George

LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - State oil firm NNPC has awarded

50 companies with contracts to buy Nigerian crude and more than

half of them are local firms, foreign and Nigerian trading

sources said.

Of the total, 32 were local companies, doubling the number

of awards to Nigerian firms compared to 2017.

NNPC also awarded contracts to supply crude to 12

governments, although it was not clear how many of the deals

would be handled by the companies already on the list of awards.

NNPC awards the oil purchase contracts annually, but sources

said the deals this year were for two years not one year.

Contract awards were announced in January last year. Sources

said the government may have delayed an announcement this time

by several months as it sought to line up more local firms for

awards, so it could drum up support for next year's election.

The sources said a partial list of firms awarded deals

emerged on Monday, with a final list coming out on Tuesday.

This year's overall total of 50 foreign and local firms was

more than the 39 listed in 2017. The list last year also

included three bilateral government deals.

NNPC did not respond to calls and emailed requests for

comment.

Nigeria's oil ministry said it produced more than 2 million

barrels per day of crude and condensate in April. Exports were

expected to average 1.8 million bpd in the first half of 2018,

up from to 1.6 million bpd in 2017, loading programmes showed.

The following is a preliminary list of winners:

International trading firms and refiners:

Augusta Switzerland based

BB Energy Lebanon

Cepsa Spain

Glencore Switzerland based

HPCL Indian refiner

Litasco Trading arm of

Russia's Lukoil

Mocoh Switzerland

Petraco Switzerland

Petrobras Brazil

Sacoil South Africa

SEER South Africa's SacOil

Energy Equity

Resources Ltd

Socar Trading arm of

Azerbaijan's Socar

Total France

Trafigura Switzerland

Vitol Britain

Calson Vitol/NNPC joint

venture

Sonara Cameroon refining co

ZR Energy

Nigerian companies:

AA Rano

Aipec

AMG

Arkleen

Barbedos

Bono Energy

Casiva

Cretus

Emadeb

Eterna

Gladius Commodities

Hinstock

Leighton

Levene

Masters Energy

Matrix

MRS

North West

Oando

Sahara Group

Ocean Bed (Sahara

trading subsidiary)

Propetrol

Prudent

Setana

Setraco

Shoreline

Ultimate Gas

Voyage

West African gas

Zitts and Lords

Obat Oil & Gas

Duke Oil (NNPC

subsidiary)

Deals with governments:

China

India

South Africa

Turkey

Ivory Coast

Ghana

Liberia

Niger

Sierra Leone

Senegal

Togo

Malawi

(Additional reporting by Paul Carsten in Abuja and Amanda

Cooper (Taiwan OTC: 6401.TWO - news) in London

Editing by Edmund Blair)