Foreign oil firm eyes Nigeria’s 2026 oil licensing round

Indonesia’s state-owned oil company, Pertamina, is considering investment opportunities in Nigeria’s upstream oil and gas sector, including producing assets and projects nearing final investment decisions, as the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission moves to attract more international capital into the industry.

The development followed discussions between the NUPRC Chief Executive, Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, Indonesia’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arif Oegroseno, and Pertamina’s Vice-President, Upstream Business Development, Toriq Abdat.

The talks focused on investment opportunities in Nigeria and broader cooperation between the two countries as they seek to strengthen energy security and increase domestic oil production.

According to a statement by the NUPRC Head of Corporate Communications and Media, Eniola Akinkuotu, on Sunday, Eyesan said Nigeria and Indonesia had similar priorities, particularly in energy security, resource utilisation and attracting investment.

The discussions also came against the backdrop of efforts by both countries to increase oil production. Nigeria is targeting three million barrels per day by 2030, compared with current output of about 1.6 million to 1.7 million barrels per day.

Indonesia, which produces about 600,000 barrels per day, is also seeking to increase output and has acknowledged the need to look beyond its domestic fields to meet its energy requirements.

The statement read, “The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has opened discussions with Indonesia on petroleum investments even as the Indonesian national oil company Pertamina signalled an interest in the upcoming 2026 licensing round.”

Explaining Pertamina’s international expansion strategy, Abdat said the company was already seeking opportunities in several countries as declining domestic production and the changing nature of discoveries pushed it to expand abroad.

“We have been given a mandate to expand our business internationally; we are now in other countries outside Indonesia. In Indonesia, we are producing only around 600,000 barrels. We are working on exploration towards deepwater, but we found more gas than oil. That is why we go outside Indonesia, Malaysia, then the Middle East, Iraq and Nigeria,” he said.

Abdat said Pertamina was particularly interested in assets that could deliver production relatively quickly, including existing producing fields and projects close to production.

We would like to be in projects with governments. Producing assets, or near production, or before FID. Now we are looking at how we can help you reach the 3 million, and also help us provide more energy for our own consumption,” he said.

Responding, Eyesan said Nigeria also had an ambitious production target and was using regular licensing rounds as one of the measures to expand investment and increase output.

“We have very aggressive targets, 3 million barrels per day by 2030, and today we are at 1.6, 1.7. We are committed to the objective and the licensing round is one of the strategies we are utilising,” she said.

The NUPRC has increasingly positioned licensing rounds as a regular source of new acreage for investors rather than an occasional exercise. The Commission said the latest round attracted about 300 companies to 50 available assets, with 196 applicants qualifying for the bidding stage. At the close of bidding, 143 companies submitted 200 bids covering 37 assets.

NUPRC subsequently announced 31 successful companies for 37 oil and gas blocks, while 13 of the 50 blocks on offer received no bids. The blocks cut across onshore, shallow-water, deep offshore and frontier basins, including the Benue Trough, Chad Basin, Anambra Basin and Benin Basin.

The Commission has also said that Nigeria’s acreage administration will continue to provide predictable and periodic access to opportunities.

The Indonesian delegation noted that it is exploring other opportunities outside crude oil and gas. The national oil company is building a fertiliser plant to reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern supply, and disruptions during the current global conflict.

Food security relates to oil and gas because phosphate and the elements that make fertilizer, the Indonesian delegation said. Nigeria, for its part, is diversifying its own phosphate sourcing, including a long-term transatlantic pipeline project with Morocco to serve West Africa. Nigeria has also simplified fertiliser distribution rules that once ran to about 160 layers of regulation.

Both sides thus agreed to keep the commercial and diplomatic tracks running in parallel.