Nigeria

Why Nigeria?

The offshore Nigeria shelf is West Africa's most prolific hydrocarbon province, with multiple billion-barrel discoveries and decades of successful production.

Since the early 1970s, Nigeria has been a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Nigeria is the ninth largest oil exporter in the world regarding value. This means that mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products generate about 90 percent of the export value for the country.

TGS and our joint venture partner, PetroData, are committed to providing high-quality data in the region. Our datasets, including 2D seismic, a unique regional Multibeam and Seafloor Sampling (MB&SS) study, and a geochemical coring project, can help evaluate various open and deepwater acreage exploration opportunities.

Mini Bid Round

The Federal Government of Nigeria has opened a mini-bid license round to explore and exploit petroleum opportunities. Seven deep offshore oil and gas blocks are on offer, with the round providing interested parties the chance to invest in the region's potential for oil and gas.

TGS-PetroData is pleased to welcome potential bidders to come and view our data packages covering the seven blocks. We offer data from our newly acquired offshore multibeam, coring, and geochemical program (the first of its type in the region), with its interpretation from newly reprocessed deep-water 2D data set, to provide a new de-risking angle to the exploration plays in the deep-water region.

Nigeria Mini Bid Round - 7 license blocks

Nigeria's Deepwater Potential

With significantly improved imaging of more than 17,000 km of recently reprocessed 2D seismic offshore Nigeria, TGS-PD data will enable a better understanding of the petroleum system of the deepwater offshore area. Our new depth imaging creates more accurate dip and realistic volume interpretation of features of interest. The potential for new license rounds over the deepwater open blocks, in conjunction with lower-risk petroleum play concepts, could once again establish Nigeria as West Africa’s flagship country for exploration.

More than ten currently producing fields in water depths of 1,000 m to 3,000 m confirm source rock presence and maturity in the deepwater region offshore Nigeria. These seem to prove that the Akata Shale formation can be mature for oil further outboard than the shelf and that there are feasible migration paths and trap charge scenarios in the distal part of the delta lobes. This makes prospects further outboard viable, such as those identified in the outer fold and thrust belt. Structural analyses on the fault and thrust patterns and detachment mechanisms of the margin slope show various viable setups of charging several folds and thrusts along the slope. 

The geometry and timing of the toe thrust formation, which detached on a most likely over-pressured regional shale formation, allow substantial volumes to be charged downdip from the known discoveries and production locations.