São Tomé and Príncipe's National Petroleum Agency (ANP-STP) has issued formal Terms of Reference inviting companies to submit proposals for three oil blocks — Blocks 7, 8 and 9 — located in the country's Exclusive Economic Zone. The publication of the ToR marks an active licensing round, meaning interested parties must prepare and submit compliant bids in accordance with the agency's specified criteria and timeline.
The ANP-STP is the regulatory authority managing petroleum acreage on behalf of the São Tomé and Príncipe state. By publishing Terms of Reference rather than a simple expression-of-interest notice, the agency has moved this process into a formal competitive bid stage. The three blocks are situated within the EEZ, though the article does not specify their individual water depths, sizes, or estimated resource potential. Companies responding to the ToR will need to consult the full documentation published on the ANP-STP website for technical and commercial requirements.
São Tomé and Príncipe occupies a position in the Gulf of Guinea that has long attracted exploration interest given its proximity to prolific basins in Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. The country shares a Joint Development Zone with Nigeria, but Blocks 7, 8 and 9 appear to fall within São Tomé and Príncipe's own sovereign EEZ acreage. Despite decades of licensing activity, the archipelago has not yet achieved commercial hydrocarbon production, making each new licensing round a prospective rather than development-stage event. Operators and investors entering at this stage are taking on exploration risk in a frontier or near-frontier jurisdiction.
For Norwegian service companies, the significance of this round lies primarily in the relationship-building opportunity it presents. Any operator that is awarded one or more of these blocks will subsequently need to conduct seismic acquisition, well planning, drilling, and — if exploration is successful — development engineering. Identifying which companies submit bids and which ultimately receive block awards will allow Norwegian firms in subsea, drilling, and well services to position themselves early with prospective clients before procurement processes open.