The NNPC/Seplat Joint Venture National Undergraduate Scholarship opened on 23 February 2026 and closed on 13 March. Three weeks. It’s worth ₦200,000 a year, renewable through to the completion of your degree, and only shortlisted candidates go forward to an aptitude test.
That’s the pattern across almost every oil and gas scholarship in Nigeria. They open on a rough annual cycle, run for three to six weeks, and close. If you’re finding out about one in September, you’re reading about a window that shut months ago. So rather than a list of what’s open today, here’s the calendar of what to track and what to prepare, because preparation is the part that actually decides whether you apply in time.
Isoko students have a route most Nigerian applicants don’t
Isoko North and Isoko South are oil producing local government areas. Isokoland hosts around seventeen oil and gas fields across Uzere, Oleh, Olomoro, Emede, Owhe, Igbide, Okpolo-Enwhe, Ozoro, Ellu and Ofagbe, with operators including NPDC, Heritage Oil and First Hydrocarbon. The Olomoro-Oleh and Uzere fields sit under OML 30, and Sterling Global operates the Ogini field in Isoko North.
That matters because several schemes run a separate Host and Transit Communities Merit Award alongside their national category. The NNPC/NAOC/Oando Joint Venture Tertiary Scholarship Scheme has run exactly that structure. Applicants from host communities compete against a much smaller field than the national pool, which changes your odds considerably.
One thing to be clear about though. Host community categories are usually tied to the communities of that specific operator, not to oil producing areas generally. So the question to ask before applying isn’t whether you’re from an oil producing LGA, it’s whether your community falls within that particular company’s host community list. Ask your community liaison committee, because they’ll know and the scholarship page often won’t spell it out.
The schemes worth tracking, and roughly when they open
Dates shift year to year, so treat these as the season to start watching rather than fixed deadlines.
- NNPC/Seplat JV National Undergraduate Scholarship. Ran late February to mid March in 2026. Open to full-time undergraduates from 200 level upward in accredited federal and state universities, with a CGPA of 3.5 or above. Worth ₦200,000 annually and renewable
- NNPC/NAOC/Oando JV Tertiary Scholarship. Has run late March to end of April, with a host and transit communities category alongside the national one
- Nigeria Agip Oil Company undergraduate scholarship. Typically opens around May or June, with aptitude testing handled by Dragnet Solutions
- NNPC/Renaissance JV University Scholarship. Ran to late July in its last cycle
- NNPC/Renaissance JV Niger Delta Postgraduate Scholarship. For Niger Delta students pursuing postgraduate study in the United Kingdom, with a June window in its last cycle
- Agbami Medical and Engineering Professionals Scholarship. Aimed at medicine, pharmacy, engineering and geosciences students
- Chevron and NNPC university scholarships, and NLNG scholarships, which weight host communities heavily
- NDDC scholarships at undergraduate and postgraduate level, open to students from the Niger Delta states including Delta
- Delta State Government bursary and scholarship schemes, announced through the state government rather than any oil company
Midwestern Oil and Gas, which operates the Umusadege field at Kwale in Delta State, also runs community focused programmes, and being physically close to Isoko makes it worth keeping an eye on.
There’s a training route that leads straight into work
Scholarships aren’t the only thing these companies run. Seplat Energy Producing Nigeria Unlimited operates an Applied Technology Training Programme for young Nigerian graduates, designed to build the practical oil and gas skills needed for entry level technician roles.
For anyone in Isoko who has been trying to get into oil servicing work and keeps running into the certification wall, that kind of programme is arguably more valuable than a scholarship, because it ends with employable skills rather than a degree you still have to convert into a job. The NNPC/Oando Graduate Acceleration Programme works on similar lines for graduates. Track these alongside the scholarships.
Get your documents together before the window opens
A three week window is not enough time to chase paperwork from scratch, and this is where most applications die. Have these scanned and saved on your phone and in your email.
- Admission letter and current student identity card
- Academic transcript or a current statement of results showing your CGPA
- JAMB admission slip and UTME result
- WAEC or NECO result
- Birth certificate or declaration of age
- A Certificate of State of Origin or local government identification
- Community endorsement, where a host community category requires one
- Recent passport photographs
The state of origin certificate matters more here than people expect, because host community and state categories both turn on proving where you’re from. For Isoko students that means the secretariat in Ozoro or Oleh, and it’s a trip worth making during the holidays rather than during an application window.
No genuine scholarship will ever ask you for money
Scholarship fraud is common and it targets exactly the people these schemes are meant to help. The rule is simple and it has no exceptions. A legitimate scholarship does not charge an application fee, a processing fee, a shortlisting fee or a fee to secure your place.
Apply only through the official portal of the company or agency running the scheme, reached by typing the address yourself rather than following a link somebody forwarded. Be careful with anyone offering to fill your application for a fee, or claiming to have a contact who can guarantee selection. And note that several schemes shortlist candidates for an aptitude test before asking for documents at all, so an early request to upload certificates somewhere unofficial is worth questioning.
Our guide on verifying a recruitment or scheme before you apply covers the same checks in more detail, and they apply equally to scholarships.
We publish scholarship and training openings for Isoko and Delta students alongside job vacancies as they’re announced. Our guide to finding work in Isoko covers what comes after graduation, and how to apply for jobs sets out the paperwork side properly.
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