The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has urged investors to reap the benefits of Nigeria’s 2026 oil and gasoline licensing round, highlighting the nation’s enhancing funding local weather amid rising international vitality uncertainties.
The Commission Chief Executive, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, made the decision on Monday throughout a roundtable dialogue titled ‘Energy Sovereignty in an Interconnected World: Aligning National Priorities, Markets and Global Security’, on the 2026 ADIPEC Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi.
Ms Eyesan informed investors that Nigeria presents a steady funding surroundings and introduced that the licensing round portal would formally open on 20 November 2026.
She urged potential investors to discover the alternatives offered by the 2026 Licensing Round, which presents 40 oil and gasoline blocks.
“We are expecting investors to turn to Nigeria. We are going into another licensing round, and we will launch our bid portal on November 20. We expect to see interested investors because the environment is a lot more competitive,” she mentioned.
“We have set a very attractive fiscal framework for investors. The overall environment is much 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.”
The NUPRC chief government mentioned Nigeria’s funding local weather had improved following the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in 2021 and the manager orders signed by President Bola Tinubu.
According to her, between 2021 and 2026, the fee carried out at the least 4 profitable licensing rounds, attracting extra investments into the nation.
She mentioned this represented a departure from the pre-PIA period, when licensing rounds have been much less frequent.
Ms Eyesan additionally highlighted Nigeria’s monumental gasoline potential, noting that the nation holds an estimated 215 trillion cubic ft (TCF) of gasoline reserves however produces barely seven billion cubic ft (bcf) every day.
She mentioned the hole between accessible reserves and present manufacturing offered vital alternatives for investors, notably with main gasoline infrastructure tasks within the pipeline.
“The stars are already aligned. For gasoline infrastructure, we simply accomplished very main infrastructure tasks that may unlock gasoline provide within the nation and the sub-region.
“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 to Europe and will also meet regional demand. So, Nigeria is positioned to meet not just domestic supply,” the NUPRC chief government mentioned.
Ms Eyesan maintained that competitors for funding within the international petroleum business had intensified as extra international locations found oil and gasoline sources.
She mentioned Nigeria had taken steps to place itself forward of the competitors by introducing reforms and making changes to draw the correct class of funding.
“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 mentioned.
2026 Licensing Round
On 7 October, the NUPRC introduced the 2026 Licensing Round, providing 40 oil and gasoline blocks to potential investors.
The announcement got here lower than three months after the fee concluded the bidding programme for its 2025 licensing round.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that 31 firms emerged as winners of 37 oil and gasoline blocks within the 2025 Licensing Round after the industrial bid convention held in Abuja in July.
The bidding course of, carried out on the Transcorp Event Centre, attracted 143 firms, which submitted about 200 bids for 37 of the 50 oil and gasoline blocks supplied by the fee.
The blocks span a number of terrains, together with the Niger Delta onshore, shallow-water and deep-offshore areas, in addition to the Benin, Anambra and Chad basins and the Benue Trough.
While 37 blocks attracted bids, the remaining 13 obtained no presents.
The NUPRC described the result as vital, noting that it was the primary time Nigeria’s frontier basins, together with the Benue Trough, Chad Basin, Anambra Basin and Benin Basin, had attracted such robust investor curiosity.
Following the 2025 licensing round, the fee additionally outlined plans to extend crude oil manufacturing by restoring greater than 788,000 barrels per day of shut-in manufacturing and advancing offshore tasks valued at an estimated $30 billion to $50 billion in the direction of ultimate funding selections.
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