NNPC Is Positioning Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Sector To Benefit From Capital Inflows—Ntia, EVP Upstream

HOUSTON: The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has said that Nigeria is safe for investment and has developed strong regulatory reforms to open the country’s oil and gas industry.

The NNPC Ltd’s Executive Vice President, Upstream, Mr. Udobong Ntia, made the call on Tuesday during a session with investors at the 2025 CERAweek by S&P Global in Houston, Texas, USA, covered by THE WHISTLER.

The theme of the session is ‘Spotlight: Attracting investment for oil and gas.’

The panel session featured the Deputy Director-General of the Planning Department, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Pinxian Zhang; the Managing Director of ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL), Rajarshi Gupta; and the Chairman, National Oil Corporation (NOC) of Libya, Masoud Mahmoud.

The EVP Upstream said investment in oil and gas will boom across the globe considering rising energy needs caused by geopolitical tensions and the energy roadmap of the US administration under President Donald Trump.

He said, “For us in Nigeria, even with the energy security tension, even in Europe, we see a big opportunity there.

“We deployed our assets in that regard; the strong price environment in the past two, three years has helped. We do think investments are going to pour in.

“Nigeria is positioning itself to benefit from that capital inflow. From a strategic level, we are growing several alternatives.”

According to the EVC, one of NNPC’s strategic moves is to harness its over 207 TCF gas as a transition fuel.

“Gas is going to be a big piece of our future in Nigeria. We are expanding along with our partners Shell, ENI, and Total. In the LNG Train, we are advancing with Train 7. We are expanding local pipelines to meet local demands.

“We have the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) Gas Pipeline (AKK) that travels through the East, West, and North. We are assuaging the gas needs in Europe by a pipeline called the Trans-Sahara gas pipeline that is going to take the gas from Nigeria all the way to Algeria, connecting Europe,” said the NNPC EVP.

He also highlighted how the NNPCL is expanding the local refining business by providing crude and gas to local refineries.

Last year, President Bola Tinubu signed three executive orders to unlock investments in the oil and gas industry.

The Executive Orders were the ⁠introduction of fiscal incentives for non-associated gas, midstream, and deepwater developments; the streamlining of the contracting process to compress the contracting cycle to six months; and the application of the local content requirements without hindering investments or the cost competitiveness.

The EVP Upstream told investors that the regulatory reforms and the PIA 2021 have unlocked opportunities for foreign investors.

He said, “There is regulatory reform. We have a new law called the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021, which has really helped in liberalising a lot of the regulatory framework in the oil and gas industry that is incentivising growth, and it is also allowing companies and countries that want to invest in Nigeria to have opportunities for cost recovery incentives like royalty that they pay.

“We are looking to make sure that across that trend, with the PIA and regulatory reforms, Nigeria can stand to benefit from all the capital that is going to be arriving.”

He noted that “Nigeria saw inflows of about $16bn to $17bn” in 2024 following the reforms.

He explained that Nigeria grew its crude oil production from around 900,000 barrels per day in 2023 to 1.7 mbpd in January this year.

He added, “China, India, and other foreign investors will benefit from investing in Nigeria because we provide everything they need. We have access to over 37 billion barrels of crude reserves; there is a whole lot more.

“We have access to over 200 TCF of gas, the liberal regulatory framework, and the fiscal framework, flexible with whatever partnership investors want, be it a joint venture or production sharing contracts.

“We have a stable democracy; we have political stability in terms of our security, which has largely improved. India and China come over; we would like to have you.”

NNPC Is Positioning Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Sector To Benefit From Capital Inflows—Ntia, EVP Upstream is first published on The Whistler Newspaper