Madar (Nouakchott) - The two production-sharing contracts Mauritania signed with US company Murphy Oil on Tuesday, November 3, 2026 pair an offshore exploration block, C10, with an old oil discovery the authorities want to study for redevelopment, Tiof, Agence Ecofin reported.
Tiof was discovered in the early 2000s. The energy and petroleum ministry estimates its reserves at about 280 million barrels, according to the agency, which said work is under way to assess the conditions for redeveloping it. Although its volumes have been estimated, the field has never been developed commercially.
Block C10 has already produced two discoveries, gas at Merou in 2004 and oil at Labeidna in 2005, while S&P Global lists 16 other prospects whose potential still has to be confirmed by drilling. In November 2023, Shell abandoned its PannaCotta-1 well in the area after finding only traces of hydrocarbons.
The signing follows a December 2025 cabinet decision authorising an exemption from competitive tendering for blocks C7 and C10 and the Tiof field, allowing the authorities to negotiate directly with interested companies, the same source said.
The contracts were signed by Energy and Petroleum Minister Mohamed Ould Abdel Vettah and the company's senior vice-president for exploration and geology, Christopher Charles Olson, after President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani received the delegation. The ministry called the partnership "a strategic turning point in the hydrocarbons sector" marking the resumption of exploration in the coastal basin.
Murphy Oil's financial commitments, any partners' stakes and the work schedule have not yet been made public. The company is active in West Africa: in October it reported 27 metres of net oil pay at the Bubale West-1X appraisal well off Cote d'Ivoire.
The return to oil exploration comes as gas output from the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim field, shared with Senegal, grows: Mauritania's LNG exports reached about 603,000 tonnes in the third quarter of 2026, up 16% year on year, and about 1.97 million tonnes from January to September, against 823,000 tonnes in the same period of 2025, according to data published by the specialised Attaqa platform.
