The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has disclosed that the 2024 oil licensing round is expected to yield as much as 1.5 billion barrels in oil output for Nigeria within the next 10 years.
The Executive Commissioner, Exploration and Acreage Management (E&M) of the commission, Mr Bashir Indabawa, stated this in a special edition of the NUPRC’s magazine to mark the 4th anniversary since its establishment.
Mr Indabawa stated that the E&AM department in the last four years has recorded several significant milestones in assessing the hydrocarbon potential of Nigeria’s sedimentary basins, building on the regulatory foundation for the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
He said the commission expanded geoscience data coverage by facilitating the acquisition, processing and reprocessing of large volumes of 2D and 3D seismic data across both the onshore and offshore basins and advancing Nigeria’s multi-client projects.
This, he said, was done in partnership with local and international geophysical companies, to de-risk exploration and attract investments.
The NUPRC in 2024 opened an ambitious upstream licensing round aimed at revitalising Nigeria’s oil and gas sector. At launch the regulator invited bids for 12 new blocks onshore, continental shelf and deep offshore, alongside seven deep-offshore blocks carried over from the 2022/23 mini-bid round, bringing the initial package to 19 blocks.
However, following acquisition of additional subsurface data and a review of acreage, the NUPRC added 17 more deep offshore blocks while withdrawing five blocks under litigation (PPL 3008, 3009, PML 51, PPL 267, PPL 268), resulting in a revised total of 24 to 31 blocks on offer depending on counting method.
While implementing the Drill or Drop provisions of the PIA to reduce the number of inactive or underperforming licenses through monitoring and enforcement, Indabawa stated that about 400 fields were identified as fallow or inactive.
“Four companies from the 2020 Marginal Field Licensing Rounds have applied for conversion to Petroleum Mining Licence (PML) and added about 80MMbbl of oil reserve. In total, we are expecting the recently concluded 2024 Licensing Rounds to add between 500 million to 1.5 billion barrels of oil within the next five to 10 years,” the executive commissioner stated.
He acknowledged that while big players remain cautious due to geological risk, security, and energy transition dynamics, this encouraged indigenous operators to take the lead, adding that this set the stage for broader participation once more discoveries and infrastructure are established.
“Exploration activity has picked up since the 2023 decline. The NUPRC achieved this by enforcing acreage work obligations, fast-tracking Field Development Plans (FDPs), launching bid rounds, improving data access and deploying the Frontier Exploration Fund (FEF).
“The result is a number of seismic surveys, exploration wells and approved projects, which are expected to stabilise and grow Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves in the medium term. The 2023 regulations have brought structure, funding and transparency to frontier exploration.
“Early wins include stronger data coverage, improved industry participation (especially indigenous) and proof-of-concept developments like Kolmani. However, sustained success will depend on addressing security, infrastructure and energy transition dynamics to fully unlock Nigeria’s frontier hydrocarbon potential.
“The passage of the regulation has brought about a resurgence of exploration activities by the NNPC- Enserv to acquire geological, geochemical and geophysical data in the frontier basins.
“This is a key element of de-risking these basins to enable hydrocarbon discovery and exploitation. Kolmani exploration phase has been concluded and is now in the FDP phase.
“Re-entering the Chad basin through Wadi wells drilling campaign and the ongoing drilling effort in the lower Benue trough via the drilling of Ebenyi-01 well in Obi LGA of Nasarawa State are testimonies of renewed exploration activities brought about by the passage of the regulation,” he stated.
According to him, the recent bid rounds have helped unlock reserves from dormant marginal fields and open blocks by reallocating them to new operators with technical and financial capacity.