TotalEnergies is running parallel exploration campaigns across two of Liberia’s offshore basins, spanning more than 21,600 square kilometres of frontier deepwater acreage, in a bid to establish Liberia as the Atlantic margin’s next proven hydrocarbon trend.
In September 2025, TotalEnergies signed four production sharing contracts for blocks LB-6, LB-11, LB-17 and LB-29 in the southern Liberia Basin, covering about 12,700 square kilometres — Liberia’s first upstream petroleum contracts in over a decade, ratified by the National Legislature in December 2025 with a combined $16 million signature bonus. The company’s 2026 work programme includes geochemical surveys, 3D seismic acquisition and seabed mapping across all four blocks, building on a proven working petroleum system that has not yet delivered a commercial discovery.
TotalEnergies is also pursuing a parallel reconnaissance programme in the neighbouring, never-drilled Harper Basin, holding a 65% interest under a Joint Study and Application Agreement with Canadian junior BluEnergies; seismic reprocessing and seabed surveys are on schedule, with the partners aiming to convert their reconnaissance licence into production sharing contracts by late 2026 or 2027.
The Liberia and Harper basins sit along the West Africa Transform Margin, sharing geological characteristics with productive provinces in Ghana, Ivory Coast and, on the conjugate South American margin, Guyana. A 2012 well by African Petroleum, Narina-1, confirmed a working petroleum system with about 21 metres of net oil pay. With signature bonuses and acreage costs still well below those in more mature frontier plays, and Liberia’s regulator preparing a further licensing round, industry watchers say the window for early-stage positioning in the country’s upstream sector may not stay open indefinitely.
Source: prospect-intel.com
