Africa's largest oil exporter delayed major oilfield bid rounds this year due to COVID-19, which led to a global oil price crash.

Nigeria is considering new oilfield licensing rounds next year, NNPC chief Mele Kyari said on Friday. Africa's largest oil exporter delayed major oilfield bid rounds this year due to COVID-19, which led to a global oil price crash.

Kyari told an online chat hosted by the Society of Petroleum Engineers International that the current price rebound should enable "some kind of licensing" next year, which he said could include ultra deepwater fields.

Nigeria this year launched its first marginal oifield licensing round in roughly two decades, fields it said were likely to be developed by local companies and were less reliant on limited international funding. Some of those have been awarded, sources told Reuters, but the government has yet to announce a full list of winners.

While Nigeria's oil output is limited by a supply cut deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producing nations, led by Russia, Kyari said that by 2022 demand will recover and there will be a need for more output.

He repeated the government's ambitious target of 3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil production by 2023.