Federal Government Adds 17 Deep Offshore Oil Blocks To 2024 Licensing Round

The Federal Government announced on Tuesday that there will be 17 additional deep offshore oil blocks in the 2024 Licensing Round for oil fields in Nigeria.

The announcement was made by the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission in Gbenga Komolafe during the pre-bid conference for the 2024 licensing round in Lagos.

Komolafe shared the updates on the 2022-2023 and 2024 licensing rounds, noting that to fulfill the commission's goal of extracting value from Nigeria's vast oil and gas resources and boosting production, they have been collaborating closely with multi-client companies.

In collaboration, they are conducting extensive exploration activities to acquire more data to foster and encourage further investment in the Nigerian upstream sector.

Komolafe further stated that "by the published guidelines, we had earlier indicated that some of the assets on offer should be applied for as clusters, namely: PPL 300-CS & PPL 301-CS, PPL 2000 and PPL 2001. Bidders are hereby advised that they may, at their option, bid for those blocks as clusters or as single units," Punch reported.

The CEO encouraged the bidders to refer to the Frequently Asked Questions Sections of the 2022-23 and 2024 Licensing Round portals or contact the upstream regulatory agency.

He noted that the registration/submission of pre-qualification documents was initially scheduled to close on June 25 but now, it has been extended by 10 days and will now close on July 5.

"Data access/data purchase/evaluation/bid preparation and submission which was initially scheduled to open on July 4, 2024, and close on 29/11/24 will now start on July 8, 2024, and close on 29/11/24 as previously scheduled," he said.

Some deep offshore blocks were offered in the 2022-23 mini-bid round and other blocks which cut across onshore, continental shelf and deep offshore terrains were also made available for the Nigeria 2024 Licensing Round.

Last month, the government invited investors to bid for 12 oil blocks and seven deep offshore assets in the 2024 marginal fields bid round. Earlier this month, there was an increase in the number of oil blocks available for bidding in the 2024 marginal bid round by the Federal government.