Murphy Oil signs four PSCs covering 2.6 million acres offshore Cameroon

Murphy Oil has signed four production sharing contracts covering approximately 2.6 million acres offshore Cameroon, taking 100% working interest and operatorship across the Elombo, Etinde Exploration, Ntem and Tilapia blocks.

The US independent, acting through a subsidiary, signed the PSCs with Cameroon following a licensing round run by the country's National Hydrocarbons Corporation (Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures, SNH). The round covered nine exploration and production blocks and closed to bids on 30 March 2026. Murphy's four awarded blocks span the Rio del Rey (RDR) and Douala/Kribi-Campo (DKC) basins.

SNH holds an option to acquire up to a 20% working interest in the blocks if the projects advance to development. Until then, Murphy carries the full exploration exposure. The two companies intend to jointly assess the exploration potential of the acreage under the new contracts.

What does the award commit Murphy to?

The contracts themselves are exploration-stage instruments, not sanctioned developments. No drilling schedule, well count or budget figure for the Cameroonian blocks has been disclosed.

The licensing round that produced the awards, however, set clear minimum requirements for bidders. Under SNH's call for proposals, investors had to submit:

• technical evaluations of the acreage;
• minimum work programmes;
• budgets;
• environmental and social plans;
• local content proposals.

Minimum exploration obligations included drilling wells, seismic data acquisition and geoscience studies. SNH also offered investors a choice of contractual forms — concession, production sharing or risk service contracts — with timelines and renewal provisions varying by block.

For practitioners, the practical read is that Murphy has taken on committed drilling, seismic and study obligations across four offshore blocks in exchange for operatorship and full working interest, with SNH's participation deferred to any development phase.

Why the acreage attracted bids

SNH framed the nine blocks on offer as low-entry exploration opportunities with existing infrastructure nearby. According to the state company, the blocks benefit from proximity to established production sites and contain identified leads and undrilled prospects.

That positioning matters for economics. The Tilapia block sits in the Rio del Rey basin, home to Cameroon's producing fields, while the Douala/Kribi-Campo basin hosts the Etinde area, where earlier development work has established a production foothold. Acreage near existing facilities shortens the path from discovery to tie-back — the variable that most often decides whether small offshore finds get developed at all.

The takeaway: Murphy is buying identified but undrilled prospectivity next to infrastructure, which is the cheapest way to add offshore exploration inventory.

How the deal fits Murphy's portfolio

Cameroon is a new address for the company. Murphy's current asset base spans offshore and onshore positions in the Gulf of Mexico, Canada, Vietnam and Côte d'Ivoire, alongside North American shale plays.

The Côte d'Ivoire position is the closest analogue. In June 2026, Murphy made an oil discovery at the Bubale-1X exploration well in Block CI-709, roughly 40 miles offshore. The well was spudded in late February 2026 by Murphy CI-709 Oil, a Murphy subsidiary and operator of the concession, and drilled in 7,795 ft of water to a total depth of 20,548 ft (6,263 m).

The Gulf of Guinea corridor is therefore already a working theme for the company, not a one-off. The Cameroon awards extend that West African exploration effort from a proven discovery at Bubale-1X into a fresh basin entry with four blocks and no prior drilling commitment history disclosed.

For operators watching the region, the signal is that SNH's licensing round — its first multi-block offering to close on 30 March 2026 — has delivered at least one sizable award to an international independent, with five of the nine offered blocks still unaccounted for in this announcement.

What to watch next

The open items are concrete: SNH's decision on whether to exercise its 20% option as projects mature, the minimum work programme details Murphy must now execute — wells, seismic and studies — and whether the remaining five blocks from the round draw bids.

The first seismic acquisition or well spud on any of the four blocks will mark the point where this award moves from acreage position to drilling story.