By EMMANUELLA ANOKAM

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has announced the official commencement of the Nigeria 2025 Licensing Round, marking another major step in the Federal Government’s drive to enhance the sector.

Mr. Gbenga Komolafe, the Commission’s Chief Executive, on Monday, unveiled the dedicated bid portal: br2025.nuprc.gov.ng during a press briefing at the commission’s Headquarters in Abuja.

Unveiling the portal, Komolafe said the development was in the bid to expand investment, strengthen transparency, and deepen exploration in the upstream sector.

The CCE recalled that recent licensing initiatives, particularly the 2022 Mini-Bid Round and the historic 2024 Licensing Round, were conducted with unprecedented transparency, global competitiveness, and strong investor engagement.

He said the 2024 Licensing Round was completed without a single litigation and earned commendations from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and other stakeholders.

Komolafe said that with Presidential approval from President Bola Tinubu, the NUPRC had now placed 50 Oil and Gas blocks on offer across onshore, swamp/shallow water, frontier basins, and deepwater terrain.

“A breakdown of the blocks includes 15 onshore blocks, 19 shallow water blocks, 15 frontier assets and One deepwater block,” he said.

He outlined the key objectives of the 2025 Licensing Round, to include boosting Nigeria’s reserves, increasing production capacity, expanding gas utilisation and creating thousands of jobs across the value chain.

Komolafe listed others as enhancing indigenous participation, and reinforcing Nigeria’s commitment to transparency in line with EITI principles.

He said as a business enabler, and with the president’s approval, NUPRC had also reduced signature bonuses to attract greater investment and participation.

He said to further de-risk exploration, the NUPRC had undertaken extensive multi-client surveys, reprocessing thousands of kilometres of 2D and 3D seismic data to deliver the highest-quality subsurface imagery available in Africa.

“This, the commission noted, sharply reduces uncertainty, lowers entry costs, accelerates time to first oil or gas, and enhances investor confidence.

“The 2025 Licensing Round is projected to attract about 10 billion dollars in investments, add up to two billion barrels to national oil reserves over the next decade, and deliver an estimated 400,000 barrels per day from fully developed assets.

“At the Commission, we acknowledge that transparency is key to investor confidence. To ensure that the bidding process is credible and seamless, the Commission has rolled out guidelines which are now available on its website,” he said.

The CCE said it had adopted a two-stage bidding process for the award of the Blocks, comprising a qualification stage and a bid stage.

Reinforcing its commitment to transparency, Komolafe said the NUPRC had also introduced a two-stage, fully digital bidding process, comprising a qualification stage and a bid submission stage.

According to him, winners will emerge at the commercial bid round and the Commission emphasised that the age or date of incorporation of bidding companies is not a limiting factor.

He added that the assessment would focus strictly on technical capacity, professionalism, and financial capability.

Komolafe said, “The qualification stage involves the submission and evaluation of applications by interested parties or consortia in accordance with the Regulation and the Guidelines.

“Only applicants who are adjudged qualified and subsequently shortlisted by the Commission shall proceed to the Bid Stage and will be required to execute a Confidentiality Agreement prior to participation.

“At the bid stage, shortlisted applicants or bidders shall submit their Technical and Commercial Bids in accordance with the Regulation, the Guidelines, and any other bidding documents issued by the commission.

“Given our commitment to transparency and alignment with best practices, the bid process will be automated and digital.” (NAN)

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