The Nigeria 2025 Licensing Round has produced its awardees, and the next phase — turning acreage into investable projects — has begun. On 21 July 2026, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) announced the award of 37 blocks to 31 companies across Niger Delta onshore, shallow water and deep offshore terrains, as well as frontier acreage in the Benue Trough, Chad Basin, Anambra Basin and Benin Basin.
Our Energy Team in this Bulletin/Newsletter examines what the awards mean in practice and the steps awardees, sponsors, investors and lenders should be considering now.
At the heart of the newsletter is a simple proposition: a licence award is not yet an asset. Investment readiness must be designed into the project from the outset — through sound commercial structuring, appropriate governance and regulatory compliance, as well as, a credible execution strategy. Financing should be the result of that work, not the starting point.
Among other matters, the newsletter considers:
- The foundations of bankability and the interdependent commercial, technical, legal, governance and financing considerations that need to be addressed before capital can be deployed;
- The 90-day post-Offer Letter compliance period under the 2025 Licensing Round Guidelines, and why awardees should treat it as a critical project mobilisation period rather than an administrative formality;
- Frontier basin development, including the distinct bankability and execution considerations for awardees operating in less-developed geological and infrastructure environments;
- Governance and transaction architecture, including the issues that should be resolved under a Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) or Shareholders' Agreement (SHA) before significant capital is committed;
- Host Communities Development Trust and Nigerian content obligations, including the implications of Sections 235 and 240(2) of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 (PIA) and the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act 2010 for project execution and financing; and
- Immediate priorities for awardees, sponsors, lenders and infrastructure counterparties, including establishing a bankability workstream, completing post-award requirements, developing the Nigerian content plan and maintaining a live Conditions Precedent tracker from the outset.
The newsletter considers the implications separately for licence awardees and sponsors, lenders and development finance institutions (DFIs), and infrastructure counterparties whose facilities and services may be critical to the development of the awarded acreage.
