Nigeria Launches 2026 Oil and Gas Block Licensing Round Involving 40 Blocks

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 6, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) officially launched the 2026 oil and gas block licensing round, planning to open 40 oil and gas blocks to domestic and international investors, covering onshore, shallow water, and deepwater exploration areas. This licensing round has been approved by the President of Nigeria and is open to companies with the technical capability, financial strength, and capacity for oil and gas resource development. The regulatory body will subsequently publish data on each block, bid qualification requirements, evaluation rules, and specific participation procedures.

According to the arrangements announced by NUPRC, the 2026 licensing round will adopt a public review mechanism, and the bidding guidelines must set out a complete evaluation methodology and increase the transparency of bidding results. All bidding companies must disclose information on their actual beneficial owners. The regulatory body will publish detailed block data, qualification review requirements, and bidding procedures through its official website and a dedicated licensing round portal. The complete list of the 40 blocks in this round, their specific locations, and the bid deadline are yet to be officially announced.

Nigeria's previous oil and gas block licensing round was launched in November 2025 and entered the stage of announcing commercial bidding results in July 2026. That round offered a total of 50 blocks and attracted 143 companies to submit 200 bids, of which 37 blocks received valid bids, and 31 companies ultimately became the winning bidders for the relevant blocks, while the remaining 13 blocks received no bid applications. The new licensing round was launched after the completion of the previous round's commercial bidding.

The upstream production recovery plan announced by NUPRC during the same period involves 63 operators. The regulatory body has identified more than 788,000 barrels per day of shut-in production capacity and plans to increase crude oil supply by restoring production. The regulatory body will also push offshore oil and gas projects with an estimated investment scale of USD 30 billion to USD 50 billion into the final investment decision stage, and plans to raise the actual level of domestic natural gas supply from the current approximately two-thirds of the prescribed supply obligation to full compliance. The above production recovery and offshore investment targets are independent work arrangements announced during the same period and have not been listed as committed investment amounts for this block licensing round.