Key points
- The 2026 round offers 40 blocks, with full evaluation methodology published and beneficial owners of every bidder disclosed.
- Crude and condensate output has reached 1.82 million barrels a day, up more than 80% since 2023, with over 73 rigs active.
- NUPRC has approved 120 field development plans since 2024, worth $47.6 billion in capital commitments.
Nigeria has opened its 2026 oil licensing round, putting 40 blocks across land, shallow water and deepwater on offer as the government pushes to turn rising drilling activity into sustained production growth.
Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, chief executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, announced the round at the commission’s fifth anniversary event in Abuja on Tuesday.
“The wait is over,” she said, adding that the blocks are open to investors with technical competence, financial capacity and “above all, the commitment to develop Nigeria’s petroleum resources.”
The launch came alongside upbeat production numbers. Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Heineken Lokpobiri said crude and condensate output has climbed to 1.82 million barrels a day, more than 80% above the level when President Bola Tinubu took office in 2023, with over 73 rigs now drilling.
Transparency rules tightened
The 2026 round will run under tougher disclosure rules. According to Eyesan, the guidelines will set out the evaluation methodology in full, publish results more completely and require every bidder to disclose its beneficial owners.
The changes follow recommendations from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, whose review of the 2022 to 2024 rounds found the process generally professional but flagged gaps in evaluation disclosure and ownership transparency.
“In Nigeria, petroleum acreage is won, not given,” Eyesan said. “It is no longer discretionary.” She promised a fixed timetable published at the outset, noting the commission met every deadline in the 2025 round despite skepticism.
That round drew 200 bids from 143 companies, with 31 firms winning 37 blocks. Notably, interest spread beyond the Niger Delta into frontier basins including the Anambra Basin, Benue Trough, Chad Basin and Benin Basin. Since the Petroleum Industry Act took effect in 2021, three rounds have produced 57 petroleum prospecting licences.
Drill or drop
The regulator wants licences converted into barrels. Eyesan said assets from previous rounds could add about 500 million barrels of reserves and at least 300,000 barrels a day of production within five years, plus roughly 20 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, supporting the national target of 3 million barrels a day by 2030.
Moreover, NUPRC has approved 120 field development plans since 2024, representing about $47.6 billion in capital commitments and, when fully developed, 1.74 million barrels of oil and 13.9 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day in added capacity.
Consequently, her message to winners was blunt: “Drill or Drop. A licence is a commitment to Nigeria, not a trophy on the wall.”
Full block details, qualification requirements and participation procedures will be published on the commission’s website and licensing portal in the coming days, supported by a virtual data room, webinars and a help desk. Every material clarification will go to all bidders, Eyesan said, so “no bidder will know what others do not.”
