Brent crude climbed above $90 a barrel on Tuesday afternoon as renewed conflict between the United States and Iran heightened inflation risks, with economists warning the South African Reserve Bank could respond with another interest rate hike.
According to NUPRC chief executive Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, 143 prequalified companies submitted roughly 200 bids for the 37 blocks that attracted offers, out of 50 originally on the market. Thirteen blocks received no bids and return to the bid basket for further technical work. Of the awards, sixteen sit in the Niger Delta onshore, eighteen in the shallow water, and one in deep offshore. The remaining eleven span frontier acreage: three in the Benin Basin, four in the Anambra Basin, four in the Chad Basin and four in the Benue Trough.
This matters because Nigeria has run licensing rounds before, and frontier basins were consistently treated as an afterthought while capital chased the Delta's proven geology. Eyesan's description of this round as the first to draw meaningful frontier interest is a regulator's way of saying the underlying economics, or the underlying appetite for risk, have shifted.
The winning list, including Sonic Petroleum, Asharami, LexOil, Saratoga, Stardeep Petroleum, Dutchford E&P and Blackrock Holdings among others, is striking for its near-total absence of international supermajors. This reflects years of divestment by Shell, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies and ENI from onshore and shallow-water assets, citing security risk and community disputes, handing the baton to indigenous and mid-tier operators willing to absorb that risk for cheaper entry.
