The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) subsidiary, Nigerian Exploration and Production Limited (NEPL), plans to invest $20 billion by 2030.
This investment is aimed at boosting Nigeria’s gas and crude oil production to support the country’s energy expansion and drive economic growth.
Speaking at the Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES) in Abuja, NEPL Managing, Director Nicolas Foucart, stated that the company requires approximately $4 billion in annual investment to boost Nigeria’s crude oil and gas production over the next five years.
Nicolas explained that:
“So, we plan this investment of about $4 billion per year over the next five years, that’s the money we need to invest between OPEX and CapEx.
“So definitely, where is that fund coming from? And how can we make sure it’s going to be there? So of course, as a company, the fund will come from profit that we are generating. So it’s that’s the self-funding aspect, but also we’ve got external funding.” he added.
However, funding remains a significant hurdle to increasing production from both new and existing assets.
Nevertheless, the NNPC subsidiary has a comprehensive plan for sustainable production, cost reduction, decarbonization, and human capital development.
Foucart indicated that NEPL might reinvest profits rather than distribute dividends to finance its operations.
He emphasized the company’s commitment to ensuring that every project has a clear business rationale and delivers value, whether to shareholders or other stakeholders.
“So, we make sure that we’ve got the right level of maintenance of the rotating equipment to increase uptime, integrity of pipelines, we are doing sectional replacement, we’re starting to replace floor lines.
“We are looking at well intervention, which is cheaper. So we did a lot of that last year. So we’re looking at anything, processes, organisation, operating model across the assets,” Nicolas said.
NEPL aims to increase its production target by 2027
Furthermore, Foucart stated that in addition to the company’s 370,000 barrels per day (bpd) drilling target for 2025, it plans to raise this figure to 550,000 bpd by the end of 2027, within a three-year period.
During the same period, the NNPC E&P company will increase gas production to 3 billion cubic feet (bcf).
Foucart explained the company’s plan, saying:
“So our plan is, from this year’s target, that we have 373,000 barrels average production for the year.
“That’s our target in 2025. To grow that to 550,000 barrels per day, that’s oil and condensate in the next three, four years. And from that production, we operate 65 per cent of that production.
“If I go to gas, today we are producing 1.4 BCF per day. And our strategic plan is showing that we should achieve close to 3 BCF over the next three, four years. Again, we operate 50 per cent of that production as NEPL,” he added.
He also noted that in the past 18 to 24 months, NEPL’s average production was 244,000 barrels, and recently, the company has reached 310,000 barrels, progressing towards the 370,000 barrels average for the year.
“So that’s a 30 per cent increase that we achieved, basically, in 12 months. That’s our strategy, giving confidence, and then we’ve got those finance, technical service agreements and assets on the gas,” he added.
Nigeria has historically struggled to meet its OPEC quota, but the industry is currently showing steady improvement, recently reaching the 1.5 million bpd allocation.
