The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) says that Nigeria is firmly on course to ramp up crude oil output to 2.5 million barrels per day by 2026, following its strategy to unlock deepwater potentials, revive dormant fields, and accelerate approvals for new projects.
Delivering the goodwill message at the 2025 PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit on Thursday in Abuja, the Chief Executive of NUPRC, Mr. Gbenga Komolafe, announced the completion of a case-by-case review of the marginal fields licensing that are due for renewal.
“Energy transition is gathering pace across the world,” he said. “Global investment in low-carbon energy not only exceeded $1.7tn in 2023, surpassing fossil fuel investment for the first time in history, but also surged by an additional 24 per cent in 2024, reaching an unprecedented $2.1tn.”
Despite this shift, Komolafe stressed that hydrocarbons would remain central to global energy demand for decades, especially in Africa and Asia.
He disclosed that reforms under the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 and recent Presidential Executive Orders repositioned Nigeria as an attractive investment destination by cutting average contracting cycles from 36 months to six months and offering competitive fiscal terms.
Komolafe disclosed that the Commission, working with operators and service firms, was spearheading a “one million barrels per day” initiative to drive incremental production. He explained that the new “cluster and nodal development strategy” would help reduce costs, shorten timelines, and de-risk investments, using shared infrastructure and tiebacks to FPSOs such as Bonga, Egina, and Agbami.
“In the area of incremental production, the NUPRC, through proactive industry collaboration, has been spearheading strategic initiatives that directly support the Project One Million Barrels per Day incremental production target. A good example is the recent Deepwater Technical Stakeholders’ Workshop for unlocking the production potentials of the deepwater resources in Nigeria.
“This high-level forum brought together leading operators, service companies, and policymakers to forge a common agenda for unlocking more than 810,000 barrels of oil per day, in potential peak output, from approved deep offshore development plans,” he stated.
Komolafe said the reactivation of dormant fields, accelerated approvals, and deployment of improved recovery techniques “have already increased production from a 1.46 million barrels per day baseline in October 2024 to 1.8 million barrels today,” adding that “with this momentum, we are firmly on track to reach our 2.5 million barrels per day target by 2026.”
On the energy transition, Komolafe said Nigeria was not ignoring global climate concerns but would adopt a “gas-centric decarbonisation pathway.”
Speaking on the marginal fields that are due for renewal, Komolafe said the “2020 marginal field round was concluded before the NUPRC took off,” adding, “Every award is done in a manner that awardees are meant to meet specific terms of the Act.”
GIK/APA