The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has unveiled crucial eligibility and bidding details for its 2025 Licensing Round, offering 50 Petroleum Prospecting Licence blocks across onshore, shallow water, and deep offshore regions in a major initiative aimed at expanding the country’s oil and gas reserves and attracting foreign direct investment.
According to a document shared by Eniola Akinkuotu, Head of Media and Strategic Communication at NUPRC, the licensing round officially runs from November 17, 2025, through July 17, 2026, featuring key milestones including portal launch, prequalification assessments, technical and commercial bidding, evaluation phases, a bid conference, ministerial approval, and final contracting.
Both Nigerian and international companies qualify to participate, with no requirement for foreign entities to be previously registered in Nigeria. However, successful bidders must incorporate under the Companies and Allied Matters Act to qualify for license awards. Applicants must demonstrate good financial standing, technical expertise, and regulatory compliance, while firms indebted to the government, insolvent, or non-compliant with laws are excluded.
Each bidder is restricted to a maximum of two blocks across the entire 2025 bidding portfolio to ensure fair competition and focused commitment. The two-stage bidding involves qualification and bid submissions, with evaluations based on signature bonuses ranging between three million and seven million dollars, proposed work programs, unit operating costs, technical and human resource capacity, bank guarantees, audited balance sheets, environmental commitments, and corporate governance standards.
Financial criteria differ by block types. Companies bidding for deep offshore licenses require an average turnover of at least 100 million dollars, while onshore and shallow water bids require at least 40 million dollars. Newly formed companies must provide parent company guarantees to demonstrate financial backing.
The 50 blocks include onshore and shallow water licenses designated PPL 2A29 through PPL 2A62, as well as deep offshore and frontier blocks such as PPL 2010, 307-309, 900-903, 700-703, and 800-803. To ensure broad international visibility, NUPRC will host a global roadshow in Lagos on January 14, 2026, Dubai on January 26, Singapore on January 30, Beijing on February 3, and Houston on February 12.
The 2025 Licensing Round marks a pivotal opportunity for investors to contribute to Nigeria’s energy future through exclusive drilling rights granted for initial terms of three to five years, extendable upon satisfactory performance in exploration and appraisal activities.
Additionally, the NUPRC dismissed reports that it is withholding the Frontier Exploration Fund from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company. The commission revealed that 185,123,333 dollars had been approved along with 14.9 billion naira. The NUPRC explained that the Frontier Exploration Fund is not domiciled in the commission but in an account controlled by the Central Bank of Nigeria, with the commission’s role simply to evaluate work programs submitted by NNPCL before approving fund releases.
Source: independent.ng