The 2026 round follows a 2025 round that closed in July 2026. It drew strong headline interest but left a quarter of the acreage without a single bid.
The funnel. The round opened on December 1, 2025 and drew nearly 300 expressions of interest. Of those, 286 companies applied for prequalification and 196 qualified. At the commercial bid conference in Abuja on 21 July 2026, 143 companies submitted 200 technical and commercial bids. They covered 37 of the 50 blocks and produced 31 preferred bidders.
The unsold 13. No bids came in for 13 blocks. Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, Commission Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), said they would be returned to the commission’s “basket”. The 50 blocks on offer spanned Niger Delta onshore (16), shallow water (18) and deep offshore (1), plus the Benin Basin (3), Anambra Basin (4), Chad Basin (4) and Benue Trough (4). The commission said blocks in frontier basins drew bids, which it called a first. Trade press reporting says the unbid 13 sit largely in those same frontier areas. The commission’s published statements do not list the 13 or explain the lack of bids.
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Terms tilted towards work, not cash. An analysis by BusinessDay noted that under the scoring schedule, the signature bonus was capped at 20 points, while a single committed exploration or appraisal well earned 50. Winners receive final awards only after paying the signature bonus and securing ministerial approval. Anyone who misses post-award conditions within 90 days loses the award, and a “drill or drop” policy applies to blocks left undeveloped.
Promise versus projection. At launch, the commission targeted about $10 billion in investment, up to two billion barrels over ten years and about 400,000 barrels a day at full operation. After the bids, Eyesan said the awarded blocks could add about 500 million barrels to reserves. Ecofin Agency reported an expected 300,000 barrels a day of added production within three years. These figures measure different things over different periods, so they are not directly comparable.
What happens to the 13. The analysis by BusinessDay expects several to reappear on refreshed terms in the 2026 round. The commission has not confirmed this.
