Nigeria offers 12 oil blocks in 2024 licensing round

Nigeria has offered 12 oil blocks in a new licensing round. It plans to complete it in tandem with a previous round for seven blocks that stalled following last year's change in government.

The 12 blocks in the new round were carefully selected to attract international investors with financial resources and technical expertise and are spread across three geological terrains, upstream regulator NUPRC's chief executive Gbenga Komolafe said.

Norwegian geophysical services company PGS, which is providing seismic data support for the licensing round, said two of the blocks on offer are onshore in the Niger delta, six are on the continental shelf and the other four are in deep water.

The round will span nine months and conclude with ministerial consent and contracting in January 2025.

Entry fees will be competitive as part of government measures to support the commercial viability of investments, according to Komolafe. "The era of front-loaded, huge signature bonuses is over," he said.

Nigeria's oil minister Heineken Lokpobiri echoed Komolafe's point about minimal barriers to entry but noted that the round is designed to bind successful bidders to strict timelines, suiting investors that are "able to do exploration almost immediately".

Lokpobiri also revealed that Nigeria plans to award licences for seven offshore blocks offered in a 2022 licensing round in tandem with the 2024 round. "The 19 oil blocks presented for bidding are strictly reserved for capable investors," he said.

The round for the seven offshore blocks started in December 2022 and had been scheduled to be completed in May 2023. NUPRC said in April last year that the schedule had been pushed back to July because of concerns about concluding "the bid process before transition to the new government". President Bola Tinubu's administration took office on 29 May last year but progress on the 2022 licensing round stalled.

Tinubu has set a target to raise Nigeria's crude production to 2.6mn b/d by 2027. The country's current target under the Opec+ agreement is just 1.5mn b/d.

Nigeria started an international roadshow for the new licensing round in the US on 7 May in Houston, Texas, and the next stop is scheduled for Miami, Florida on 14 May.

By Adebiyi Olusolape