Nigeria’s crude oil production has increased by 600,000 barrels a day to 1.8 million barrels a day, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company said, as it targets 2 million barrels a day by 2027. Group chief executive Bashir Ojulari attributed the increase to implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act, improved investment conditions and stronger collaboration with industry partners, in remarks at the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi reported by BusinessDay.
Ojulari said sustaining the increase depends on protecting existing production, maintaining critical infrastructure and accelerating new projects, and pointed to TotalEnergies’ Ubeta project, Shell’s Bonga South West development and Eni’s Zabazaba project as evidence of renewed investor interest. NNPC is targeting 20 billion dollars of investment through commercial agreements already concluded, he said, and is engaging new partners including Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC and Chinese investors interested in Nigeria’s refineries.
The context is a long decline driven by oil theft, pipeline vandalism, underinvestment and operational disruption, which makes the durability of the rise the open question rather than its size. NNPC also set gas targets of 10 billion standard cubic feet a day by 2027 and 12 billion by 2030, said the Obiafu Obrikom Oben gas pipeline was completed in August 2026, and said the Ajaokuta Kaduna Kano pipeline should begin delivering gas to Abuja before the end of the year.
For the wider market, a Nigeria producing closer to 2 million barrels a day is a different OPEC negotiation and a larger Atlantic Basin supply pool than the theft constrained producer of recent years. The claim is the company’s own, made at an investor facing conference, and the test is whether monthly production data through the winter holds the new level.