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Standardization of Bid Evaluation in the Upstream Sector of the Nigeria Oil and
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Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3): 412-419
© Scholarlink Research Institute Journals, 2013 (ISSN: 2141-7016)
jeteas.scholarlinkresearch.org
Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3):412-419 (ISSN: 2141-7016)

Standardization of Bid Evaluation in the Upstream Sector of the

Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry
1
Naiyeju E. A., 2Ogedengbe T. I. and 3Aderoba A. A
1
Mobil Producing Nigeria Limited (an ExxonMobil Subsidiary), Lagos
2
Mechanical Engineering Department, The Federal University of Technology, Akure
3
Besade Nigeria Limited, Ondo
Corresponding Author: E. A. Naiyeju
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Abstract
To avoid lack of transparency, favoritism of some contractors and tailored evaluation this study developed
standard evaluation method for the evaluation of bids in the upstream sector of the Nigeria oil and gas industry.
Elements of the evaluation criteria were standardized based on the data collected through administered
questionnaires. Sequential elimination and goal programming methods were introduced alongside the existing
weighted average method, which was modified, to develop models for evaluation purpose. Value analysis
techniques were applied for populating the developed goal programming model. The developed models were
implemented through a hierarchical encrypted software which was developed using csharp programming
language. The models and software were validated and evaluated using three case studies of one of the major
operators in the Nigeria oil and gas industry. The result obtained showed that the developed software would
increase efficiency of bid evaluation as it was able to reduce the time required for bid evaluation considerably.
The study provides objective estimation of the numerical values of all elements of bid evaluation and ensures
that not even the head of the evaluation team could unilaterally manipulate the bid evaluation process so that
bidder’s selection actually translates to project performance.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Keywords: bidding, evaluation, appraisal, criteria, upstream sector, oil and gas industry.

INTRODUCTION Eromosele, 1997) and the impact of the oil industry

The oil industry is one of the well-established
industries on the global scene. It consists of national
and international oil companies with numerous
suppliers offering a wide variety of goods and
services. Contracts between the oil companies and
their suppliers frequently involve a chain of
subcontractors which can be referred to as the supply
chain. It is important that the suppliers must either be
able to offer full service i.e. Engineering,
Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts, or
they must specialize in each segment and possess
adequate capabilities to handle the project they are
bidding for before it should be awarded to them. For
the Nigeria oil sectors to be able to withstand the
competitiveness in the global oil industry,
transparency and well-defined process of evaluations
of contracts must be put in place. The first serious
study on the Nigeria oil industry focused on the
evolution of the industry’s operations in the light of
the importance of oil for the country’s future energy
needs (Schatzl, 1969). Another study has also
concentrated on the impact of the oil industry on the
Nigerian economy and investment patterns (Pearson,
1970). A substantial number of other studies
followed, most of which have dealt with the impact
of the oil industry on Nigeria’s economic
development and the business side of oil operations
(Emembolu, 1975; Odofin, 1979; Onoh, 1983;
412
on the country’s political development (Turner,
1976). In another work, the geographical
consequences of the oil industry have been studied
(Ogbona, 1979). This work emphasized on the
combined environmental consequences of oil
operations in the oil producing areas. Another
researcher have analyzed the impact of oil operations
on the local people of the oil producing communities
(Daniel, 1994 ).
Major studies of Nigerian petroleum legislation by
some researchers, who have focused on the legal
framework of the oil industry’s commercial activities
have provided a detailed analysis of substantive law
(Etikerentse, 1985; Olisa, 1987 and Atsegbua, 1993).
Though a lot of research work have been conducted
on the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry as evidence from
the literature described, it appear little or nothing has
been done towards establishing appropriate bid
evaluation criteria and procedure that could forestall
violence and loss that may emanate from partiality in
award of contracts. Generally, the award of contracts
in the Nigeria Oil and Gas industry is usually
executed via the tendering/bidding procedure. The
general principle is that assessment of bids must be
systematic, thorough and fair to obtain the best value
for money spent, only achievable through sincere
Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3):412-419 (ISSN: 2141-7016)
comparison of competitive bids. However, according
to Sayes 1997, though the Nigeria oil and gas
industry have a standard bidding procedures that is
globally recognize to brings out the best and worst in
bidders, the regulators/operators are the problem. A
recent prosecution under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act (Gillies, 2009) is an example of how
corruption had infiltrate contracting procedures in the
sector. There is high level of corruption and
bureaucracy which in most cases prevents the most
competent contractors from winning the appropriate
contracts. Therefore, there is need for further research
to develop a standard evaluation procedure which
would provide adequate evaluation of bids and ensure
that favoritism towards bidders is removed during bid
evaluation.
Challenges of the Bid Evaluation Processes and
Probable Solution
Bidding and the bid evaluation Process, which
involve invitation to bid and bid submission as well
as the technical, contractual and financial appraisal of
the submitted bids, is particularly vulnerable to a
variety of schemes that result in fraud and agreement
corruption. Technical appraisal of a bid should be
conducted by project engineer who have knowledge
of the technical aspects of the offer and the
constructional methods proposed. Similarly
contractual and financial appraisals should be
conducted by contract engineers having appropriate
relevant experience. Whichever way the appraisal is
undertaken, the three aspects should be considered
together as they are closely inter-related. The
appraisal must therefore be a joint team operation.
The evaluators should analyze the risk (i.e. uncertain
event with negative impact on at least one project
objective) the company is facing if she is awarding a
contract. Furthermore, it is important not to
underestimate the size of a challenge as some of the
biggest risks which organizations face are: systematic
underestimation of the cost and time to carry out any
project activities; systematic underestimation of the
management resources and, especially, managerial
talent needed to achieve objectives successfully.
Since risk is inevitable in any projects, risk
assessments should be taking more serious in the
Nigeria oil and gas industries rather than allowing
any influences in the award of contracts. When this
team of evaluators is partial and/or the level of
experience of each contributor within the team is not
taken into consideration, these constitute a major
challenge to the evaluation process.
The bid evaluation process is a multi objectives
decision making scenario wherein several methods
have been developed to solve similar evaluation
process for projects (Papandreou and Zohar, 1974;
Sharif and Adulbhan, 1975; Baum and Carlson,
1974). General models not tailored to project
appraisal can be adapted and used for evaluating the
413
multi-objectives strategic decisions in bid appraisal.
Such models can be classified as: a) Weighted
average method; b) Sequential elimination method;
and c) Goal programming technique.
(a) Weighted average method: This is already in
use for manual computation of bid appraisal in the
Nigeria oil and gas industry though the components
were not standardized. It involves determining the
relative importance, i.e. the weights, of each of the
objectives of the project and taking their average in
respect of each bidder’s submission to determine the
quality of each bid. Using statistical methods, which
utilize historical data of the policy makers’
preferences, these weights can be derived. They can
also be derived by directly questioning the decision
makers about their preferences. Weighted method
appears to be very popular because of their
simplicity. However, the methods tend to demand too
much from the decision makers as evident in past
works (Sharif and Adulbhan, 1975; Churchman et al.,
1956).
(b) Sequential elimination methods entail the
elimination of poor alternative from the decision
space. Depending on the method, alternatives are
eliminated if they do not meet preset standards or
they fail to cross at least one of the threshold levels of
acceptance. In respect of this, a method of tolerance
ranges was developed (Aderoba, 1977). This method
account for the effect of multiple objectives on
project selection and location via the reduction of the
domain decision-making achieved by sequentially
considering the multiple objectives in order of their
importance and eliminating those alternatives which
do not fall within acceptable ranges of the conditional
optima of the objectives. This approach was
introduced for modeling bid appraisal in this study.
(c) Goal programming (GP) method: is a special
type of technique developed by Charmes and Cooper
(1961). This technique uses the simplex method of
finding optimum solution of a single dimensional or
multi-dimensional objective function with a given set
of constraints, which are expressed, in linear form. In
goal programming technique, all management goals,
whether one or many, are incorporated into the
objective function and only the environmental
conditions, i.e. those outside the management’s
control are treated as constraints. This technique is
more useful for optimizing the multiple goals of a
firm. Real world decision problems in management
and engineering often involve multiple, potentially
conflicting performance objectives. Such decision
problems can generally be modeled as multiple
objective optimization problems, the solution of
which can be based on trade-off analysis among
objectives. However, the implementation of a trade-
off analysis is dependent upon the availability of
decision maker’s preferences and the ways of
eliciting such preferences (Hwang and Masud, 1979;
Jacquet et al., 1987; Yang and Sen, 1996). An
important property of goal programming is its
Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3):412-419 (ISSN: 2141-7016)
capability to handle managerial problems that involve
multiple incompatible goals according to their
importance (Lee, 1972).
Since the analysis of value is intrinsic to the bid
evaluation process and value analysis is the preferred
evaluation method where critical non-monetary
benefits need to be evaluated (Arthur and Sonia,
1980), the value analysis approach could be applied
to populate the goal programming model. This
approach can be used to quantify the relative
importance of non-monetary advantages or benefits
for a set of alternatives and allow subsequent benefit
and cost consideration during decision-making.
To avoid subjective analysis and/or bias within the
value analysis approach, it was necessary to find a
numerical method of rating performance and other
features that would allow separation of variables and
the determination of how well an idea satisfied a
particular function separately. This led to a form of
matrix evaluation. The idea of matrix analysis is not
new and has been used before for decision making. It
has the advantage that numerical scores can be
worked out, with due weight factors, thus providing a
figure of merit for each possible decisions. Many
psychologists have shown that man has serious
limitations in his ability to combine factors in
subjective decision problems (Hwang and Masud,
1979; Shelley, 1964). Hence, using the matrix
evaluation chart the numerical scores or weight of the
goals to be achieved, and other variables could be
objectively worked and utilized for bid evaluation.
In respect of the challenges of bid evaluation and the
probable solution discussed, the sequential
elimination method and the goal programming
method was introduced alongside the existing
weighting method, within a standardized procedure,
for the modeling of the established evaluation criteria
to facilitate bid evaluation in the upstream sector of
the Nigeria oil and gas industry in Nigeria. Also, the
developed approach was implemented through
software designed and developed to completely curb
favoritism and partialities in the result of bid
evaluation.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A general overview of bid management and appraisal
with regard to the upstream sector of the oil and gas
industry in Nigeria was conducted so that all
pertinent factors which influence bid
evaluation/appraisal in the industry were articulated.
These factors (fifteen in number) hereafter revered to
as measures of appraisal and/or evaluation criteria
include: Safety, Health and Environment (SHE),
quality control/quality assurance, Nigerian content,
cost and schedule, un-priced commercial, project
control and management, brown field experience,
retrofit works, procurement, engineering, fabrication,
414
transportation, installation, hook-up ,
commissioning/completions and operations. Two
categories of questionnaires were developed and
administered to key players in the oil and gas sector.
These questionnaires were administered to One
hundred and eight project managers/engineers in
Mobil, National Petroleum Investment Management
Services (NAPIMS), Chevron, Shell, Total, Agip,
Belpop, Pan Ocean and Addax. This was used to
source for necessary information from stake holders
who are closely related to bid evaluation in the
industry. Statistical analysis of the data obtained from
the first category of questionnaires administered
revealed that the respondents have the essential
qualification(s) and experience(s) to make adequate
contribution to the study. Also, it confirm the fact
that NAPIMS very often complains about 91.8
percent of the respondents’ companies bid evaluation
process while it revealed that 100 percent of the
respondents’ companies are not using any standard
software for bid evaluation which actually established
the need for this study.
Standard evaluation questions were developed to
standardize, guide and facilitate evaluation of bids in
respect of the established evaluation criteria after due
consideration of the responses to the second category
of the questionnaires administered to the stakeholder.
The questions, which were developed for each and
every criterion of bid evaluation, were function of the
various elements of the particular criterion.
Three mathematical models were developed for bid
appraisal based on weighted, sequential elimination
and goal programming methods. The models
combined the measures of appraisal to arrive at a
decision for overall appraisal of a bid project. For the
weighted average model, the individual weight
indices were obtained for the various measures of
appraisal through extraction of the weight of the
evaluation criteria from the contributions of the
respondents. For the GP model, the modified method
of matrix analysis was applied to the elements under
each of the criteria of bid evaluation to establish their
relevance. This involved setting up function rating
grids and matrix evaluation charts for elements of
each of the evaluation criteria to estimate the
coefficient of the measures of appraisal.
A software was developed to implement the standard
evaluation questions and the models developed.
Validation and evaluation of the developed model
and software were carried out using case studies of
three projects already executed at Mobil Producing
Nigeria Unlimited.
Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3):412-419 (ISSN: 2141-7016)

THE MATHEMATICAL MODELS IN THE under achievement of the goal is not needed so that
GENERAL FORMS only the overachievement ( is considered.
Weighted Method
This method applies the relative importance of each This optimization technique was applied to the fifteen
evaluation criterion to the bid evaluation. The general evaluation criteria to obtain optimum value for each
form of this modeling approach as used in this study of them from the model solution. These are stored
is given in Equations 1 – 3 and then utilized to determine the optimum score of
(1) each of the submitted bids.

Principle and Procedure for Generating

(2) Parameter Values of Model and Model Solution
In the weighted average method, the Project manager
who is more familiar with the major components of
(3) the evaluation process would allot weights to the
evaluation criteria or this may be done based on
Sequential Elimination Method responses to questionnaires administered to equally
This method was used to filter bids based on qualified personnel. The Total weight must be equal
prioritized scores called filter score set by the to 100, without which the system will not compute.
evaluator(s). The essential steps for the sequential The overall evaluation result for an individual bid for
elimination method are summarized in the following a particular project is therefore computed using
algorithm Equation
Step 1: Of all the evaluation criteria available for
evaluation/elimination purpose, select the one having
(7)
the highest priority for consideration. The lower the
ID of an evaluation criterion the higher is its priority,
Where S1 is the bidder’s score under procurement,
starting from 1.
W1 is the weight of procurement and so on.
Step 2: Calculate the score, SU, of each of the bids
available for evaluation, in respect of the evaluation
Table 1: Concept of priority in Sequential
criterion selected in step 1, using equation 2.
Elimination method
Step 3: Take elimination decision on each of the bids Filter Priority
appraised in step 2 using the rules that follows Evaluation Criteria
Score ID
If S , eliminate bid(s) Procurement (A) 1

Unpriced commercial (B) 2

If SU - SF , accept bid(s) Safety, Health/Environment (C) 3

Project Management (D) 4

Step 4: Note and store the bid(s) that scaled through 5
Quality (E)
step 3. This/These is/are the bid(s) available for
Commissioning/Completion (F) 6
evaluation. Leave out the rejected bids.
Step 5: Cross check whether all evaluation criteria Transportation/Installation (G) 7
have been considered or not. Go to Step 1 Operation (H) 8
Step 6: The bid(s) available in step 4 is/are the
Planning/Scheduling/Cost (J) 9
qualified bid(s)
Brown Field Project Experience (K) 10
Goal Programming Method Nigeria Content (L) 11
The general model for cost optimization of the bid Project Execution Plan (M) 12
evaluation process defined in respect of the general
Onshore Fabrication (O) 13
goal programming model for each of the evaluation
criteria is as given in Equations 4 – 6. Engineering (V) 14
(4) Hook – Up (Y) 15
Subject to;
(5) Under the sequential elimination method, bidders are
(6) filtered based on the filter scores and the priority set
for the evaluation criteria. For example, Table 1 can
In goal programming, the overachievement ( be used to explain how sequential elimination is
and the underachievement ( derivatives are implemented in this study. The priority ID, column 3,
usually included. However, in this study, only the in Table 1 is set by the project manager based on
bids with high marks are accepted. This implies the preliminary study and experience and the bids are
filtered out with respect to the priority ID. As an
example, Procurement is the evaluation criteria with
415
Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3):412-419 (ISSN: 2141-7016)

priority 1 in Table 1, hence it is the first to be combination produces the correction

considered. Therefore, if any bids scored below S1F factor defined for the nth assessor as
(the filter score already set by the evaluator) in
(8)
Procurement, then it does not meet the evaluator’s
requirement and it is filtered out and disqualified. All
bids that have their scores in Procurement greater To compute the correction factor for each assessor,
than or equal to S1F will scale through the first the assessment variables on Table 2 were applied to
priority and they would then be considered under capture the level of experience of the assessor.
priority 2 (i.e. Unpriced commercial). Similarly, the
remaining bids are filtered in respect of their scores Table 2: Correction factor variables
compared with the filter score, S2F, under unpriced Grade Poin Length of Point
commercial. This is continued until the last priority is Level (GL) t Service (LS)
Above 15 0.5 Above 12 0.5
considered and the bid(s) that scaled through will be 14-15 0.4 9 < LS ≤ 12 0.4
taken as the qualified bid(s). yrs
12-13 0.3 6 < LS ≤ 9 yrs 0.3
In solving the goal programming model, value 10-11 0.2 3 < LS ≤ 6 yrs 0.2
analysis was used to describe the decision variables. 8-9 0.1 1 < LS ≤ 3 yrs 0.1
First, the importance of elements of each evaluation
criterion was rated through the development of For example, Correction Factor for an assessor on
functional rating grid for the evaluation criteria. grade level 10 but having between 6 to 9 years
Thereafter, the matrix evaluation charts were experience in the field would be:
developed for each evaluation criterion. This gives a
numerical value for the performance of each of the Correction Factor, y = 0.2 + 0.3 = 0.6
ideas which forms the goals, duly weighted for the Thus the score awarded by the assessor for any
importance of each element. Also, the overall element of bid appraisal will be multiplied by the
performance of each element with respect to the goals correction factor 0.6.
was deduced here. The overall performance of each
element is set as the non-negativity constant SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
representing the relative weight to be assigned to the Having developed appropriate models for bid
deviational variables. The performance of each idea evaluation using the aforementioned methods, a
is set as a goal constraint while the satisfaction factor software was developed for their implementation.
is used as the amount with which the element The software, which was developed using CSharp
contributes to a relevant goal. The model is solved programming environment, is named STUN, an
using lingo software, which is ported into the acronym for standardization of bid evaluation in the
software developed to implement bid appraisal upstream sector of the Nigeria Oil and Gas industry.
process. The software uses a Lingo library for the The software activities flowchart and the various
mathematical operation. The library introduces the personnel designated to handle the different activities
slack variables into the model itself. Since this is is as given in Figure 1. The Figure shows the three
unidirectional focus i.e. only overachievement is classes of users of the software namely (1) The Data
required, the underachievement variable is not entry Clerk; (2) The Evaluators (Engineer and Senior
required. Engineer); and (3) The Project Manager.

Correction Factor for Assessors

For all the three modeling approach used for
evaluation in this work the assessors are expected to
assess each contractor based on the evaluation criteria
and the procedures to be adopted is that all the
assessors will read all the submissions of the
contractor in all the areas to be evaluated and then
answer standard questions which are used to generate
essential data. Therefore there is the tendency of
some variation in assessment due to the experience of
the assessor hence correction factor was developed
(Equation 8) and applied to adjust the submissions of
the assessors.
Figure 1: STUN activities/personnel flowchart
The correction factor designated as was
formulated as a function of staff salary grade level The data entry Clerk completely describes the
(GL) and length of service (LS). The linear bidder’s submission in relation to his existing
facilities and potentials for the project. This involves

416
Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3):412-419 (ISSN: 2141-7016)
the use of the response of the bidder(s) to the
company advertisement as contained in the bid(s)
submission. The development of appropriate
questionnaire had earlier been undertaken and these
questions have been completely coded for scoring in
the database. The authority level for this section of
the database is limited to a data entry clerk.
The Engineer executes the first stage of apportioning
scores to the fifteen parameters of evaluation based
on the bidders’ submissions early described by the
entry clerk. The scoring is done by the different
evaluators who are specialist in the fifteen evaluation
criteria areas. The authority level at this stage is an
Engineer.
The Senior Engineer reviews the preliminary
evaluation done by the Engineer. He/She engages
Technicians and Engineers to verify the bidder’s
facilities on the field. He then proceeds to review the
scores as appropriately. Using the review of
preliminary evaluation interface of STUN the senior
engineer then provide a review of evaluation of the
various bidders submissions based on his/her
findings.
Evaluation of the bidders submission is done by the
Project Engineer by activating the Manager interfaces
of the software after having login through his/her
password (see Figure 2). When the Project Engineer
triggers the appropriate function of STUN, the
software compares the various bids using any or all
of the three standardized methods of weighting,
sequential elimination and goal programming
depending on the Project Manager’s request. The
software conducts the comparative analysis using the
data/information already entered into the database in
respect of the bidders’ submissions, preliminary
evaluation and review of the preliminary evaluation
of the various bidders. The result generated from this
assessment would form the basis of the
recommendation to the management.
Figure 2: Manager interface of STUN
417
APPLICATION AND EVALUATION OF
SOFTWARE
The developed software was applied to three case
studies of live projects at one of the major operators
in the Nigeria oil and gas industry and evaluated.
Case Study I is the Engineering Procurement,
Construction, Installation, Commissioning (EPCIC)
for a Gas Flare Elimination Project. Case study II
involves Engineering Procurement, Construction,
Management (EPCM) Major Integrity Project while
Case study III involves Usari Engineering
Procurement, Construction (EPC) Pressure
Maintenance. The scope of case I include facilities
upgrade including power generation and gas
compression system along with associated control
systems and utilities. Also the scope of case II
includes Engineering, Procurement, Construction and
repair of 42 inches crude loading line and
replacement of three main crude oil pipelines which
collectively carry about 350 kbd crude oil production
from offshore platform to the treating, storage and
loading facilities while the scope of case III includes
Engineering, Procurement and Construction for the
installation of a new 8 legged injection platform (F1)
adjacent to the existing Usari production platform.
The invitation to tender (ITT) was sent out for each
of these projects as at the time each was to be
executed. Five (5) contractors were invited to submit
technical bids for case I while seven were invited
each for case II and case III. Manual evaluation of
these bids which was carried out and compared with
the evaluation that was done using the developed
software (STUN) is as presented on Tables 3 - 5.
For the three case studies, Tables 3 to 5 shows that
the results obtained from the existing appraisal (EA)
done in the past using weighted average method
(obtained from the appraisers) are on the high side in
comparison with the manual evaluation (ME) done
using the weighted average model modified in this
study. This shows that the modified model present a
stiffer evaluation of the bids through the
consideration of the experience of the evaluators.
Also, the bid scores obtained from the manual
evaluation (ME) and the developed software (STUN),
using the weighted average, sequential elimination
and goal programming methods are in agreement
with one another as it could be observed for the
weighted average method on the Tables. This serves
as a way of validating the developed software.
 Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3):412-419 (ISSN: 2141-7016)

Table 3: Evaluation result for Case I

Bidder Weighted average method Sequential elimination Goal Programming
(Company) EA ME STUN method
C-A 76 72 72 C-A 70
C-B 72 68 68 C-C 65
C-C 72 69 69 C-B 63
C-D 85 78 78 65
C-M 67 61 61 60

Table 4: Evaluation result for Case II

Bidder Weighted average method Sequential elimination method Goal Programming method
(Company) EA ME STUN
C-A 75 70 70 C-A 64
C-B 64 59 59 C-Q 54
C-C 73 66 66 60
C-D 62 55 55 53
C-M 61 56 56 51
C-Q 74 68 68 61
C-S 77 71 71 65

Table 5: Evaluation result for Case III

Bidder Weighted average method Sequential elimination method Goal Programming method
(Company) EA ME STUN
C-A 63 59 59 C-D 55
C-B 70 65 65 C-B 61
C-C 73 70 70 68
C-D 78 71 71 69
C-E 60 50 50 45
C-F 61 58 58 53
C-G 54 49 49 40

Furthermore, Tables 3 to 5 reveal that the goal
programming approach generally returned lower
marks/scores for the assessed bids in comparison
with the weighting average method. Therefore, it
could be inferred from this that the goal programming
method provides a stiffer measure for bids appraisal
than the weighted average method.
However, these Tables show that the sequential
elimination method reduced the contractors to three
for the first case while in the second and third cases it
reduced the contractors company to two. A general
observation that could be drawn from these results is
that the methods could actually be combined toward
pursuing and achieving unbiased evaluation of bids in
the Nigeria oil and gas industry. Generally, the
Project Manager has unlimited influence on the
process so that he can manipulates the appraisal
process, but in STUN, the Project Manager has
limited access. He/She can only view the work of
other users, but cannot change their entries.
In addition, when compared with the time it took to
complete the manual evaluation of the case studies
the software developed (STUN) was able to reduce
the total duration of the bid evaluation process by an
average of four weeks. This is due to the fact that the
period required for manual organization,
interpretation and evaluation of bid submissions had
been eliminated by the use of the software. Also, the
approach applied to develop the accessibility
structure of the software had facilitates improvement
418
of transparency thereby reducing favoritism of some
contractors and tailored evaluation.
CONCLUSION
A standard evaluation procedure for evaluating bid
value was developed for the upstream sector of the
Nigeria oil and gas industry in this study. The
existing weighted average method was modified and
sequential elimination and goal programming
methods were introduced to model the bid evaluation
problem. Model evaluation using practical case
studies showed that the modified weighted average
model provides a stiffer evaluation than the existing
model. Nevertheless, the goal programming model
provides more stiffer evaluation than the modified
weighted average model though both appear to
exhibit similar trends in respect of the scores obtained
by the bidder companies. Also, the sequential
elimination model was found to have eliminated
some of the bidder companies considered
incompetent in certain areas required for adequate
execution of the contract. However, after a careful
study of the evaluation score data, the eliminated
companies happened to have obtained low scores in
the other evaluation using the modified weighted
average and goal programming models. Hence the
methods could be combined for effective evaluation
of bids in the Nigeria oil and gas industry. Interactive
and user friendly software developed using the
CSharp programming environment was used to
implement the models and the evaluation procedure.
The software which runs on Microsoft Windows
operating system was hierarchically encrypted to
 Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences (JETEAS) 4(3):412-419 (ISSN: 2141-7016)
prevent the integrity of the evaluation procedure so
that favoritism in bid evaluation is highly reduced.
The software developed to facilitate the bid
evaluation process is only applicable for use in the
upstream sector of the oil and gas industry
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