The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has renewed its warning that inactive oil licences face recovery as the 31 October compliance deadline approaches. It also projects that 22 recent licence awards could add at least 250,000 barrels a day within five years.
Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, the commission’s chief executive, addressed new licence holders in Lagos on 20 October. The two-day workshop focused on moving projects from award through exploration and development to production.
The commission’s statement said extensions would no longer be automatic. Eyesan wanted more than half the awardees to reach first oil within two years, followed by second wells within three to four years. These are regulatory expectations, rather than evidence that the additional production has begun.
The approaching deadline follows an earlier circular requiring affected operators to report their compliance with approved work programmes. They must identify constraints, propose measures to address them and provide revised implementation timetables by 31 October.
In its public account of that circular, the commission identified holders from the 2020 Marginal Field Bid Round, the 2022/2023 Mini Bid Round and the 2024 Licensing Round. The reporting requirement applies to non-performing licences, rather than an announcement that every licence awarded through those exercises will be cancelled.
The regulator acknowledged obstacles including access to finance, drilling rigs, security, infrastructure, host-community engagement, approvals and arrangements between partners. It said it was willing to help operators resolve constraints within the law. That provision leaves room for individual circumstances to be considered alongside work obligations.
The latest workshop statement uses stronger language about recovering idle blocks. The earlier circular, however, requests compliance information and mitigation proposals by the same date. Neither document establishes that named licences have already been revoked, and the workshop statement does not identify a completed cancellation.
Addressing journalists at the event, Eyesan defended the technical and financial screening used during the licensing process. TheCable reported her explanation that companies had been evaluated against bidding requirements and that the commission must now ensure they assemble the resources needed to work their assets.
She also said the priority extended beyond raising headline production volumes to ensuring that companies advanced the minimum work programmes attached to their awards. The 22 awards discussed at the workshop came from recent licensing exercises, including the 2022/2023 and 2024 rounds.
The Guardian reported a further concern raised during the discussions: some previous bidders assembled technical teams to compete for assets, then disbanded those teams after winning. Paying for a licence, the report explained, did not by itself establish an operator’s ability to develop a field.
Eyesan’s warning therefore addresses what happens after an award, when operators must sustain technical capacity and financing through exploration and development. The projected output remains dependent on those companies progressing their work, rather than on the award documents alone.
The commission said the workshop’s technical sessions covered regulation, work programmes, exploration, appraisal, field development, well operations and finance. Legal and financial professionals joined its specialists to guide the new awardees through the steps between securing a licence and producing oil.
Illustrative archive photograph: Windfall Engineering personnel working offshore in Nigeria, dated 2012, by Windfallengprojectsltd / Wikimedia Commons. No allegation of licence default is made against the company or people shown. CC BY-SA 4.0. Image source; licence.
