The Federal Government, through the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, has declared that the country 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.
It also announced the completion of a case-by-case review of the marginal fields licensing that are due for renewal. The Chief Executive of NUPRC, Gbenga Komolafe, stated this on Thursday in Abuja while delivering his goodwill message at the 2025 PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit, with the theme “Building a Resilient Oil and Gas Sector in Nigeria: Advancing HSE, ESG, Investment, and Incremental Production.”
“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.
The NUPRC boss, who was honoured with an award at the event, 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.
He revealed 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 is not ignoring global climate concerns but would adopt a “gas-centric decarbonisation pathway.”
Marginal field licenses
Komolafe said the NUPRC has completed a case-by-case review of the marginal fields licensing exercise that is due for renewal.
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.”
According to a statement issued by NUPRC media, the NUPRC CCE clarified that, based on the provisions of the law, the marginal field holders are expected to meet specific milestones upon which they will be assessed and considered for renewal.
He explained that a technical assessment was done by the commission on the marginal fields on a case-by-case basis in line with the extant laws, adding that license renewal will be merit-based.
The CCE said, “It doesn’t necessarily mean that they should meet the terms of the award at the same time. The Act has made it clear that the terms are organised in such a way that it is on a milestone basis. In that respect, for the marginal fields that are due for renewal, and in the transparent manner the NUPRC has operated, we try to look at each marginal field on a case-by-case basis.
“We defined the technical assessment criteria and made it available to all the marginal fields, and requested them to cooperate. An expert team was set up that reviewed each of the awardees on a case-by-case basis and recorded it on a score sheet that was done transparently.”
Komolafe disclosed that the outcome of the assessment has been submitted to the Minister of Petroleum State Petroleum (Oil) for approval in line with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act.
“Based on that, we have submitted the results of the assessment to the Minister for approval. So, we believe that in the weeks ahead, successful companies that have met the required milestones will have their marginal fields renewed,” he stated.
