The Federal Government has announced that 13 of the 50 oil and gas blocks offered during the 2025 Licensing Round will be returned to the licensing basket after failing to attract bids from investors.
The Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, made the disclosure on Tuesday at the 2025 Commercial Bid Conference in Abuja.
According to Eyesan, although 50 blocks were made available for bidding, only 37 attracted interest from prospective investors.
“At the end of the exercise, we had 50 blocks on offer, but we only had representation for 37 of those 50 blocks. Thirteen of those blocks will be returning to the basket,” she said.
She revealed that 143 companies submitted nearly 200 bids for the available assets, describing the level of participation as encouraging.
“We have a total of 143 companies showing interest through about 200 bids. That, for us, was remarkable,” Eyesan said.
She noted that the licensing round initially drew interest from nearly 300 companies, describing the response as a sign of renewed investor confidence in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum industry.
According to her, the number of interested firms was reduced to 196 after the prequalification stage before advancing to the technical and commercial evaluation process. Eventually, 143 companies qualified to participate in the commercial bidding phase.
The 2025 Licensing Round, announced on November 11, 2025, under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, offered 50 oil and gas blocks across seven sedimentary basins.
The blocks include 16 onshore assets in the Niger Delta, 18 shallow water blocks, one deep offshore block, three in the Benin Basin, four in the Anambra Basin, four in the Chad Basin, and four in the Benue Trough.
The bid portal opened on December 1, 2025, while a pre-bid conference was held in Lagos on January 14, 2026, to guide prospective investors. Registration and prequalification submissions closed on February 27, with the prequalification exercise completed on March 16.
Under the evaluation framework, winning bids will be determined using a weighted assessment of signature bonus commitments, proposed work programmes, and performance security, combining both technical and commercial scores rather than relying solely on financial offers.
The government said the approach is aimed at ensuring oil and gas assets are awarded to investors with the financial capacity, technical expertise, and operational capability to drive exploration and boost production in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum sector.
