TotalEnergies is on schedule to reach a second agreement with Liberian authorities in the coming months after committing $200 million per block in first offshore oil contracts late 2025.
The company is accelerating efforts to Start Drilling Where Previous Operators Confirmed Working Petroleum System, according to report published by Businessfront.
It signed four production sharing contracts (PSCs) covering approximately 12,700 square kilometres in Liberia’s southern offshore basin, marking the country’s first upstream petroleum agreements in more than ten years and signalling renewed investor appetite for frontier acreage along West Africa’s Atlantic margin.
The contracts — covering blocks LB-6, LB-11, LB-17, and LB-29 in the Liberia Basin — were signed in September 2025 under a direct negotiation licensing round organised by the Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority (LPRA), the country’s upstream regulator, and ratified by the National Legislature in December 2025.
The four blocks carry a combined signature bonus of $16 million and an estimated investment value of $200 million per block.
TotalEnergies’ 2026 work program is focused on building the technical case for drilling. Geochemical surveys, 3D seismic acquisition, and seabed mapping are under way across all four blocks, targeting improved subsurface imaging in an area where previous operators confirmed a working petroleum system but have yet to make a commercial discovery.
The company has held its first Joint Operations Committee meeting with the LPRA to formalize oversight of the campaign.
EP Liberia Managing Director Isabelle Dalsace presented the program to President Joseph Boakai in Monrovia in February 2026, underscoring the strategic weight both sides attach to the agreements.
A second basin in play
TotalEnergies’ Liberian ambitions extend beyond the southern basin.
Under a joint study and application agreement with Canadian junior BluEnergies, the company holds a 65% participating interest in a reconnaissance program covering three blocks in the Harper Basin — a geologically distinct, undrilled province to the southeast.
Seismic reprocessing and a seabed survey campaign are on schedule, with the partners targeting conversion of their reconnaissance licence into PSCs by late 2026 or 2027.
The two program together span more than 21,600 square kilometres of frontier deepwater acreage.
Geology and the window for entry
The investment case rests on a geological trend that has grown more compelling over the past decade. The Liberia and Harper Basins sit along the West Africa Transform Margin, sharing structural and stratigraphic characteristics with provinces that have delivered major discoveries in Ghana, Ivory Coast, and — on the conjugate margin — Guyana.
The most significant prior result in Liberia came from African Petroleum’s 2012 Narina-1 well, which encountered approximately 21 metres of net oil pay in Turonian-aged submarine fan rocks.
For investors evaluating Atlantic margin opportunities, Liberia’s early-stage upstream position means signature bonuses, acreage costs, and partnership terms remain well below those in more mature frontier plays — a gap that a commercial discovery would rapidly close.
The LPRA is also running a parallel data campaign with seismic provider TGS and is preparing a further licensing round, suggesting the window for early positioning, while open, may not remain so for long.
TotalEnergies’ commitment across two basins anchors the geological credibility of the play and positions Liberia as one of the more accessible frontier entry points on the continent for operators and investors tracking West African upstream.
