The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has set 31 October for the withdrawal of oil and gas licences left inactive beyond legal deadlines, its director general, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, announced on Tuesday, 20 October, in Lagos.
The directive concerns allocated blocks whose holders have carried out no activity for three years for onshore permits or five years for offshore permits. After this period, the NUPRC will take back the assets, according to the communiqué published by the regulator.
The director general said extensions would no longer be granted automatically. This application of the use-it-or-lose-it principle aims to speed up exploration and production, but the commission did not specify how many licences could be withdrawn at that deadline.
The regulator had already said on 12 October that it had recovered more than 50 unexploited fields in a campaign launched about two years earlier. These assets have been reintroduced into allocation procedures, while a tender launched on 6 October covers 40 onshore, coastal and deepwater blocks.
At the same induction workshop for new holders, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan said she expects at least 250,000 barrels per day within the next five years from the 22 recent allocations. This volume is a target set by the regulator, not production already secured.