The Society of Petroleum Engineers Nigeria Council (SPE) has cautioned that Nigeria’s ambition to increase crude oil production beyond three million barrels per day (mbpd) may remain unattainable unless critical policy gaps and implementation challenges across the petroleum value chain are urgently addressed.
The professional body said achieving higher production targets requires more than ambitious projections, stressing that sustainable output growth must be anchored on regulatory clarity, disciplined capital deployment and improved operational efficiency.
Chairman of the council, Francis Nwaochie, made the remarks during a pre-OLEF press conference in Lagos, noting that Nigeria’s energy future will be determined largely by effective execution of industry reforms rather than aspirational targets.
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According to him, global geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions and volatility in energy prices are increasingly reshaping the international oil and gas landscape, making it imperative for Nigeria to strengthen the resilience and efficiency of its petroleum sector.
Nwaochie said the ongoing national discourse around increasing crude oil output should be treated as a strategic policy signal rather than a public relations benchmark.
“For Nigeria, this is not merely about headline numbers. It reinforces the need for resilience, operational efficiency and long-term planning in the petroleum sector,” he said.
Nigeria currently produces between 1.6 million and 1.7 million barrels per day, far below the widely discussed three million barrels per day production aspiration.
Nwaochie explained that the higher production target represents a long-term strategic goal shaped by several technical, regulatory and market considerations, including production limits set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
He noted that increasing output would depend on addressing three key structural constraints affecting Nigeria’s upstream sector—idle wells, declining production from mature oil fields and insufficient reserve replacement.
According to him, many wells across Nigeria’s oil fields remain shut-in or underutilised, limiting the country’s production capacity.
He, however, acknowledged that the ongoing idle well restoration initiative being implemented by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) represents an important step toward recovering stranded production and boosting output levels.
“Reactivating idle wells can unlock significant volumes of oil that are currently not contributing to national production,” he said.
Beyond idle wells, Nwaochie also highlighted the growing technical challenge of declining pressure in ageing oil fields, which has continued to constrain production.
He explained that stabilising output from mature reservoirs requires the deployment of advanced enhanced oil recovery techniques such as water injection and gas injection to maintain reservoir pressure and optimise extraction rates.
Industry activity indicators, he said, show modest improvements, with approximately 42 drilling rigs currently operating across Nigeria, reflecting a gradual rebound in exploration and development activities in the upstream sector.
Despite these positive signals, the SPE chairman cautioned that potential production gains could be undermined if regulatory uncertainties and policy inconsistencies continue to weaken investor confidence.
“Technology and capital must operate within a coherent regulatory environment. When approval processes are slow or mandates overlap, investment momentum weakens,” he said.
Nwaochie further stressed that uncertainty surrounding fiscal terms remains one of the major factors discouraging private sector investment in high-risk upstream projects.
He explained that oil and gas investors typically require clear fiscal and regulatory frameworks before committing significant capital to exploration and field development activities.
“When fiscal terms lack clarity, capital hesitates. Investors require predictability to deploy long-term capital into technically complex and high-risk upstream ventures,” he added.