Nineteen upstream oil licences in Nigeria are set to expire this year, putting operators on notice even as the regulator quietly issues fresh acreage to new entrants. The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission's latest Concession Situation Report lists 12 Petroleum Prospecting Licences and seven Oil Prospecting Licences with 2026 expiry dates, alongside three more that lapsed in 2025.
The report does not say what happens next. Some concessions are marked as undergoing conversion, others carry notes suggesting possible tenure extension, but for most of the 19, NUPRC has not stated a final outcome. Contacted for clarification, the commission promised a response the next day; none had come by Tuesday.
Among the more notable licences: PPL 220, held by Navante Exploration and Production Limited and tied to the Abigborodo field in the onshore Niger Delta, expires 16 October. PPL 232 (Kizi Oil and Gas Services) and PPL 235 (Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas) both cover continental shelf acreage linked to the Amaniba and Udara fields and expire in November. On the OPL side, Sahara Upstream Production's OPL 228 and Cleanwaters Consortium's OPL 289 are among licences already past or approaching their stated dates.
The timing is pointed. In July, NUPRC awarded 19 fresh PPLs to 12 successful bidders from its 2024 Licensing Round, most running until 2031, even as an equal number of older licences sit unresolved. Energy economist Professor Emeritus Wumi Iledare said renewal typically hinges on whether meaningful exploration or development work has been done on a block, and that holders should have engaged the regulator well ahead of their expiry dates.
That expectation sits inside the Federal Government's broader "drill or drop" policy, under which Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Heineken Lokpobiri has vowed to reclaim idle assets from operators sitting on undeveloped licences. NUPRC Chief Executive Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan put it bluntly to bidders at the 2025 commercial bid round: "The award should not be a trophy. It shouldn't be just a medal of honour. If you do not do anything in three years, I'm sorry, we will come for those assets."