Liberia has dropped its deadline for direct negotiations on acreage offshore, opting to allow these to continue indefinitely.
The Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority (LPRA) had set November 30 as the deadline. The agency said it had received expressions of interest (EoIs) from IOCs. It did not report how many companies were interested or which areas had attracted the most bids.
More detail may be forthcoming later this month.
Extending the deadline will allow LPRA to evaluate the bids, it said. Further, IOCs will be able to buy data to work on their technical evaluation.
Liberia launched its offer for 33 offshore blocks in the Harper and Liberia basins in June 2021. It set the initial deadline as the end of May 2022.
There are five phases to direct negotiations, the agency said.
Liberia’s offshore is conjugate to Guyana, the LPRA said, but under explored. There have been some technical discoveries but nothing commercial.
Multi-client data covers 24,773 km of 2D and 26,921 square km of 3D, in addition to gravity and magnetic data.
The statement said it was possible to spot syn-rift and post-rift traps in the areas, with “direct analogues to producing fields and recent discoveries in neighbouring basins”.
Volumetric assessments suggest fields could hold more than a billion barrels of oil in place.
The LPRA is working with TGS and Africa Energy Partners on the direct negotiations.
The country had first launched a licence round in 2020, but failed to secure commitments. It then opted to pursue direct negotiations instead.