Nigeria relaunches licensing round with 12 oil blocks

…Announces investment prospects, despite plummeting oil industry

Ben Eguzozie

Nigeria, seeking to accelerate upstream investment in its plummeting oil industry, relaunched licensing round, while also announcing available opportunities in the country.

Launched earlier this month, Nigeria’s latest licensing round features 12 deep offshore and shallow water blocks oil blocks — including five blocks from last year’s round — and is available for bidding through January 2025.

Several international oil companies (IOCs) have divested their decades-held oil assets in Nigeria, which has taken a huge dip in the country’s production quota. For more than eight years, the West African top oil producer had fallen below its OPEC allotted quota. Recent reports said Nigeria’s production has dropped to around 1.4 million barrels per day (bbl/d), from initial 2.1 million bbl/d before 2016. Also, Angola had since overtaken Nigeria in Africa’s production level.

Suffused in deep economic downturn, Nigeria is seeking to attract local and international explorers to its acreage, with a view to increasing its reserve base and maximizing production.

According to Kelechi Ofoegbu, executive commissioner of Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), while announcing the commission’s licening round relaunch, said, “each block has been chosen for its potential to bolster our national reserves… We are committed to conducting the licensing round in a fair, competitive and transparent manner and ensuring a level playing field for indigenous and international investor”.

At the Invest in African Energy (IAE) forum, organized by Energy Capital & Power, in Paris, France, NUPRC told potential investors of the licencing round relaunch — while industry stakeholders unpacked key investment opportunities.

The NUPRC boss said Nigeria was seeking to accelerate upstream investment, with the federal government implementing tax credits for non-associated gas greenfield development and commercial incentives for deepwater oil and gas projects.

Leading operators including Shell, TotalEnergies and Chevron have pledged billions of dollars in developing Nigeria’s oil and gas supplies, coupled with onshore and marginal field opportunities for local and junior explorers.

John Amin, managing director of Platform Petroleum, said the activities of investors in oil and gas are no longer done in such a way that the environment is impacted negatively… “Owners collaborating with operators to ensure that activities are carried out seamlessly is a testament to the new investment drive in Nigeria,” he said.

Per Magnus, senior partner & head of analysis at Rystad Energy, said, “there are a lot of opportunities onshore for local entrepreneurs. The regulatory framework — having a $2 fee on flaring and a $3.4 price on local gas — will enable local entrepreneurs to turn into gas producers. That’s an area of small, but very profitable investments — wells can be drilled with triple digit returns”.

In addition to driving upstream exploration, Nigeria is prioritizing the expansion of its downstream sector, having launched several large-scale projects targeting enhanced energy security and oil refining and gas processing capabilities. These include the Train 7 expansion project at the Nigeria LNG plant – increasing Nigeria’s LNG production capacity to 30 million tons per year by 2027 – as well as the 650,000-bpd Dangote Refinery that came online at the start of this year, creating a sizable new domestic market for Nigeria’s crude oil.

Anibor Kragha, executive secretary at African Refiners and Distributors Association, speaking on the downstream side, said, “we are looking at where investments can be segmented — it’s not just refining, but also ports, terminals, pipeline infrastructure, CNG fleets, LPG and so on. The goal is to develop a robust intra-African oil and gas industry whereby we can balance energy security with energy transition.”