A partially completed licensing round is underway in Nigeria, during which nine companies have emerged as the main contenders for licenses, most of them being local participants.

Progress of the Licensing Round

The review of technical and commercial applications continues in Abuja. The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has already issued nine Petroleum Prospecting Licenses (PPL). At the time of publication, the application opening procedure had only been partially completed and was scheduled to resume later on Tuesday.

Of the 14 blocks reviewed so far, nine have received approved applications. For two of these blocks, additional rounds were required to determine the winner.

Competition for Key Blocks

The fiercest competition was for block PPL 2A42 in the Niger Delta. Lexoil and Southborne Oil & Gas received identical scores after evaluation, so both were invited to submit signing bonus offers to determine the winner. In the first round, both companies offered $5 million, necessitating an additional round. In the second round, Lexoil bid $8.3 million, surpassing Southborne’s offer of $8 million.

Block PPL 2A39 attracted 22 applications, with Pivot Gis and BVOF Energy receiving equal evaluations. In the additional round, Pivot Gis won by offering a signing bonus of $14.53 million.

Results for Other Blocks

Three highly sought-after blocks—PPL 2A40, 2A29, and 2A32—received 22, 11, and 11 applications respectively. Block PPL 2A40 was awarded to Network E&P, PPL 2A29 to Ssonic Petroleum, and PPL 2A32 to Dutchford E&P.

Other winners include:

• CFP Pipelines & Flowlines (PPL 2A30)
• Attabason Global (PPL 2A33)
• Rosem Energy (PPL 2A38)
• Asharami Deeepwater (PPL 2A41)

Five blocks—PPL 2A21 and PPL 2A34-2A37—did not receive any applications.