By Mary Izuaka

 

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) said it will officially open the bid portal for the 2026 Licensing Round on November 20, with 40 oil and gas blocks on offer.

The Chief Executive of the NUPRC, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, disclosed this during a roundtable discussion titled ‘Energy Sovereignty in an Interconnected World: Aligning National Priorities, Markets and Global Security’ at the conference on Monday.

The NUPRC, in a statement by its Head, Media and Corporate Communications, Eniola Akinkuotu, on Monday, said Ms Eyesan told investors that Nigeria offers a stable climate amid the global energy tension and urged them to look towards Nigeria by taking advantage of the 2026 Licensing Round.

A licensing round is a process by which the government grants oil and gas exploration and production rights to companies through a competitive bidding process.

“We are expecting investors to turn to Nigeria. We are going in for another licensing round, and we will be launching our bid portal on November 20. We expect to see interested investors because the environment is a lot more competitive.

“We have set a very attractive fiscal framework for investors. The entire environment is a lot more secure. We have been able to manage costs with a lot of incentives for investors, and we expect to see investors take up the offer when we open the portal,” Ms Eyesan said.

She noted that since the passing of the Petroleum Industry Act in 2021, as well as the executive orders signed by President Bola Tinubu, Nigeria has seen an improvement in its investment climate.

According to her, between 2021 and 2026, the NUPRC had held at least four successful licensing rounds which had brought in more investment into the country.

This, she said, is a departure from the pre-PIA era, when licensing rounds were not frequent.

She said Nigeria possesses huge energy potential as it sits on 215 trillion cubic feet of gas, but daily production is barely 7 billion cubic feet.

This presents an opportunity to investors, especially as key gas infrastructure is in the pipeline, she said.

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“The stars are already aligned. For gas infrastructure, we just completed very major infrastructure projects that will unlock gas supply in the country and the sub-region,” she said.

“We talk about two major projects on the drawing board to move gas through the Nigeria-Morocco Atlantic Gas Pipeline and Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline. Again, this gas will go somewhere in Europe and will also meet regional demands. So, Nigeria is positioned to meet not just domestic supply,” she stated.

Ms Eyesan maintained that with many countries discovering petroleum resources, the race for investments has become more competitive.

She said Nigeria was already ahead of the game as it had made certain modifications in order to attract the right capital.

“We understand that investors will prize execution risk, cost, delays and also uncertainty, and so what we have done in Nigeria is to ensure that we guard against these risks and then attract the investment required to enable us to unlock the huge resources we sit on,” she said.