Keypoints:
- TotalEnergies and BluEnergies deepen Harper studies
- Liberia’s frontier basin remains undrilled
- A drilling decision is still to come
LIBERIA is edging towards a moment that could reshape its offshore oil ambitions. TotalEnergies and BluEnergies are sharpening their picture of the little-explored Harper Basin, where new seismic work and seabed studies could eventually determine whether the promise beneath the Atlantic is strong enough to justify drilling.
The numbers are eye-catching. An independent assessment has estimated unrisked prospective resources of about 17.9bn barrels of oil and 28.8tn cubic feet of gas. But they come with an important warning: none of that oil or gas has been discovered.
Harper remains undrilled.
That simple fact is the dividing line between what geologists think may be there and what Liberia can actually count on.
For a country that does not currently produce oil, the stakes are substantial. A successful exploration well could open a new chapter in Liberia’s offshore industry. An unsuccessful one would be a reminder of just how uncertain frontier exploration can be.
From seismic promise to drilling targets
The acreage being studied covers Blocks LB-26, LB-30 and LB-31, spanning about 8,924 sq km under Reconnaissance Licence RL-003.
BluEnergies holds a 35 percent interest in the acreage, while TotalEnergies has 65 percent following an agreement announced in January 2026.
The reconnaissance licence runs until June 30, 2027.
For now, much of the work is about making an old geological picture much clearer.
TGS has been reprocessing approximately 6,100 sq km of 3D seismic data originally gathered in 2013. The company says the work is intended to produce clearer images of Upper Cretaceous geological targets and preserve signals that can help explorers judge whether certain formations could contain hydrocarbons.
That may sound highly technical, but the objective is straightforward: give the companies a better idea of where they might drill before committing the large sums required to sink a deepwater well.
Work at sea is adding another piece to the puzzle.
Seabed coring, heat-flow measurements and water-column imaging are being used to look for signs that hydrocarbons may have moved through the rocks below the seabed. The studies can also help geologists understand whether the basin became hot enough over millions of years to generate oil or gas.
In plain terms, TotalEnergies and BluEnergies are looking for as many clues as possible that Harper contains a functioning petroleum system before putting a drill bit into the seabed.
That is meaningful progress.
It is not a discovery.
What 17.9bn barrels really means
Much of the excitement around Harper comes from the size of its estimated prospective resources.
An independent assessment dated March 28, 2025, put the basin’s unrisked prospective potential at around 17.9bn barrels of oil and 28.8tn cubic feet of gas across identified prospects and leads.
The key word is ‘prospective’.
These figures represent hydrocarbons that geologists believe could exist in formations that have not yet been drilled. They are not proven reserves and should not be read as oil or gas that Liberia has already found.
There is also no guarantee that anything eventually discovered would be technically or economically viable to produce.
That is a common reality of frontier exploration. Seismic images can tell a persuasive geological story, only for the first well to reveal a very different one.
The challenge for the partners now is therefore not to produce ever larger headline estimates. It is to narrow the field to a handful of prospects strong enough to justify the cost and risk of drilling.
Why TotalEnergies changes the picture
TotalEnergies’ involvement gives the Harper programme added weight.
Deepwater exploration is expensive. A company needs the technical ability to interpret complex geology, the experience to manage offshore drilling and the financial capacity to cope if a multimillion-dollar well comes up dry.
A global operator such as TotalEnergies brings those resources.
BluEnergies has also drawn attention to major offshore discoveries elsewhere along Africa’s Atlantic margin, including Ghana’s Jubilee field, discoveries off Cote d’Ivoire and the Venus discovery in Namibia.
The comparisons help explain the excitement, but they need to be treated with care.
Harper is not Jubilee. Nor is it Venus.
The geological settings differ, and successful discoveries elsewhere cannot prove that Liberia’s deep waters contain commercial oil or gas.
What those discoveries do show is that deepwater fan systems along Africa’s Atlantic margin can host major petroleum accumulations.
Ghana offers one of the clearest examples. Its Jubilee field transformed the country’s upstream sector after production began in 2010, and Jubilee remains at the heart of Ghana’s offshore oil production.
Farther south, a succession of discoveries has turned Namibia’s Orange Basin into a major focus for global explorers.
Liberia hopes Harper can one day generate similar interest.
First, somebody has to drill it.
Liberia makes a wider offshore push
Harper is also part of a broader attempt by Monrovia to bring fresh investment into Liberia’s offshore sector.
The country is advancing its 2026 Offshore Direct Negotiation Licensing Round, offering opportunities across 29 blocks spanning the Liberia and Harper basins.
The Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority is taking the licensing campaign to international investors, backed by a large package of modernised offshore seismic information.
Prequalification opened in August ahead of the formal launch planned for African Energy Week in Cape Town in October.
The calculation is clear. The more companies know about what lies beneath Liberia’s waters, the easier it becomes for them to decide whether the geological opportunity justifies the financial risk.
Liberia is no longer trying to sell investors an almost blank map of the seabed.
But even the best seismic data cannot eliminate uncertainty.
The National Oil Company of Liberia says the country does not currently produce oil and that production would only follow if commercially viable reserves were discovered.
Harper has not crossed that threshold.
The drill bit gets the final word
The next major question is whether TotalEnergies and BluEnergies see enough in the seismic and seabed results to move from studying Harper to drilling it.
That decision will matter far more than any prospective-resource estimate.
If the evidence is persuasive, Liberia could move towards the first serious test of a deepwater basin that has remained untouched while other Atlantic-margin countries have made major offshore discoveries.
If the evidence falls short, the companies may decide that another round of technical work is needed or that the economics simply do not justify a well.
Either outcome would tell Liberia something important about Harper.
For now, the basin sits in that intriguing space between geological promise and commercial reality.
The picture below the seabed is becoming clearer. The companies are gathering more evidence. Liberia is opening more acreage to investors.
But until a well is drilled, nobody knows what Harper will ultimately yield.
And in oil exploration, the drill bit always gets the final word.
