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NUPRC woos investors as Nigeria offers 40 oil, gas blocks in 2026 Licensing Round – EnviroNews
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The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has urged investors to take advantage of Nigeria’s improving investment climate and participate in the 2026 oil and gas licensing round, which offers 40 oil and gas blocks.
The Commission Chief Executive (CCE), Mrs. Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, disclosed that the licensing round portal would officially open on November 20, 2026, urging prospective investors to take advantage of the opportunities in the country’s petroleum sector.
Eyesan made the call during a roundtable discussion titled, “Energy Sovereignty in an Interconnected World: Aligning National Priorities, Markets and Global Security”, at the 2026 ADIPEC Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday, November 2, 2026.
She said Nigeria offered a stable investment environment amid growing global energy tensions and increasing competition among countries seeking to attract capital into their petroleum industries.
“We are expecting investors to turn to Nigeria. We are going in for another licensing round and we will be launching our bid portal on November 20. We expect to see interested investors because the environment is a lot more competitive,” she said.
The NUPRC boss said the government had introduced an attractive fiscal framework, improved security and incentives to reduce operating costs and encourage investments.
“We have set a very attractive fiscal framework for investors. The entire environment is a lot more secure. We have been able to manage costs with a lot of incentives for investors and we expect to see investors take up the offer when we open the portal,” she added.
Eyesan attributed the improvement in Nigeria’s investment climate to the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in 2021 and executive orders signed by President Bola Tinubu.
She said the NUPRC had conducted at least four successful licensing rounds between 2021 and 2026, attracting additional investments into the country’s upstream petroleum sector.
According to her, this represents a departure from the pre-PIA period when licensing rounds were less frequent.
Highlighting Nigeria’s gas potential, Eyesan said the country had an estimated 215 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas reserves but currently produced barely seven billion cubic feet per day.
She described the gap between the country’s vast reserves and current production as a major investment opportunity, particularly with the development of critical gas infrastructure.
“The stars are already aligned. For gas infrastructure, we just completed very major infrastructure projects that will unlock gas supply in the country and the sub-region,” she said.
Eyesan also identified the proposed Nigeria-Morocco Atlantic Gas Pipeline and Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline as major projects that could expand Nigeria’s gas export capacity and connect its resources to international markets.
She said the projects would position Nigeria to supply gas to Europe while meeting growing energy demands across the African region.
The CCE maintained that Nigeria’s energy investment prospects extended beyond meeting domestic demand, noting that the country could become a major supplier to regional and international markets.
She, however, acknowledged that competition for investments had intensified as more countries discovered petroleum resources and sought to attract international capital.
Eyesan said Nigeria had consequently introduced measures to address investors’ concerns about execution risks, project costs, delays and regulatory uncertainty.
“We understand that investors will prize execution risk, cost, delays and also uncertainty, and so what we have done in Nigeria is to ensure that we guard against these risks and then attract the investment required to enable us unlock the huge resources we sit on,” she said.