The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri, has decried the lack of significant increase in Nigeria's crude oil production in the past one year.
Speaking during the 2025 Nigerian Oil and Gas Energy Week yesterday in Abuja, Lokpobiri said despite the federal government implementing far-reaching reforms, executive orders, fiscal incentives, streamlined regulatory processes to make the work of operators easier and investment more attractive, questions still remain on the low output.
Daily Trust reports that despite the government claiming success in reducing oil bunkering, the daily average crude oil production in 2025 has been fluctuating between 1.4 million bpd and 1.5 million bpd which similar to the production output of last year.
Recently, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Olawale Edun acknowledged that oil revenue performance remains below target due to underwhelming crude oil production and global price fluctuations.
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"We're not where we expected to be on oil output which is at 1.2mpd. However Every effort is being made to raise production, but this has had an impact on short-term revenue projections and debt service funding," he said.
But Lokpobiri yesterday stated that the country can't continue with the current trend but needs to get serious about ramping up production and reclaiming Nigeria's rightful place among leading oil producers.
He urged every operator to show cause by performance and not promises.
He added that it is no longer acceptable for critical national resources to remain in the hands of companies that lack the technical or financial capacity to optimize them or worse, those who use such licenses merely as a lever to access scarce capital but divert it to unrelated ventures.
He said the oil and gas industry has witnessed far too many cautionary tales of such nature and must now draw a clear line.
He added that Joint Ventures and Financial/Technical Services Agreements (FTSAs) are not weapons to hold the sector hostage but are frameworks built on trust that would act in the nation's best interest.
On his part, the Chairman of IPPG, Abdulrazaq Isa, said the immediate focus as an industry is to reposition and key into the marching order given by Mr. President to the NNPCL to raise national production to 3 million barrels of oil per day and 12 billion cubic feet of gas by 2030. He said ambitious target is a clarion call to the entire industry which could only be realised through wholesome structural changes across the entire energy sector.
He said given the 5-year timeline, the bulk of this incremental crude oil and gas production will come from the recently divested assets in the onshore and shallow water acreages.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd), Engr. Bashir Bayo Ojulari, announced that the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) Gas Pipeline has successfully crossed the River Niger, boosting the hope of the project's completion by Q4 2025
Ojulari said the feat was achieved through effective and innovative contract reengineering and industry collaboration.
He also disclosed that for the first time in a long while, the nation enjoyed 100% crude oil pipelines availability throughout June 2025.
Nigeria needs to return to original vision of the PIA - Expert
Speaking with Daily Trust, a renowned professor of petroleum economics, Prof. Wumi Iledare, said despite the well-publicized incentives embedded in Nigeria's Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and Presidential Executive Orders and efforts, crude oil production remains stubbornly low.
He said the outcome, though disappointing, is not surprising to those familiar with the oil and gas industry as the sector is neither a "mom-and-pop" venture nor a quick-turnaround trading business.
"It takes years--from exploration to discovery to first oil. The process requires patient capital, consistent policy, and effective institutional governance. The reality is that Nigeria's upstream sector is still grappling with the consequences of over two decades of reform uncertainty. That long interlude of policy hesitation has now converged with the natural decline associated with a maturing basin. While the PIA was intended to be the game-changer, its implementation has unfortunately fallen short of its transformational promise.
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"Rather than ushering in a new era of investor confidence and operational efficiency, the Act's implementation has been characterized by skewed institutional arrangements and a transactional, letter-of-the-law approach. This undermines both the spirit and strategic intent of the legislation.
He stated that to reverse course, the government must reorient its approach--starting with a return to the original vision of the PIA: transparency, accountability, and clear institutional separation of roles. Sustainability in oil production cannot be achieved if regulatory autonomy is compromised or if fiscal competitiveness is eroded.
