243 oil blocks have been granted concession status by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Commission (NUPRC), which maintains that this is completely untrue despite a recent newspaper article that claimed some oil assets were being abandoned.
In a statement released yesterday, the NUPRC stated that this action was taken in accordance with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021’s goal of transparency.
According to a recent article that cited statistics from the NUPRC, Nigeria currently has 220 available oil blocks dispersed over its onshore and offshore basins.
The nation’s underutilized energy riches in its most technically sophisticated but capital-intensive location is highlighted by the claim that the deep offshore terrain has the greatest number of unlicensed blocks (59).
According to the report, there are 41 unclaimed blocks in the Benue Trough, 40 in the Chad Basin, 28 in the Sokoto Basin, and 16 in the Bida Basin.
Additionally, it reported that there are still seven unregistered blocks in the offshore Niger Delta, thirteen in the Anambra Basin, and eight in each of the Benin Basin and the onshore Niger Delta.
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In accordance with Section 7(t) of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021, which gives the commission the authority to hold periodic licensing rounds and award Petroleum Prospecting Licences (PPLs) and Petroleum Mining Leases (PMLs) to potential investors, the commission clarified that 220 oil blocks were not abandoned but were instead merely awaiting concessions.
The commission added that following recurring bidding cycles and the fulfillment of requirements, concessionaires would receive the 220 oil blocks.
The upstream regulator led by GbengaKomolafe claimed that a popular report on the alleged abandoned oil blocks was a misrepresentation of the data it had posted on its website.
The upstream regulator encouraged the public to visit its website at https://www.nuprc.gov.ng/ for factual information on its operations, while also advising the media to exercise caution in their reporting and put the interests of the country first.
