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OPINION/ANALYSIS

By Emeka Eboagwu

Part One of a Three-Part Series Supporting the Presidential Petroleum Reform and Value Optimisation Taskforce

The creation of the Presidential Petroleum Reform and Value Optimisation Taskforce signals that Nigeria is entering a new phase in the evolution of its petroleum sector. Having completed one of the most significant governance restructurings in the industry through the Petroleum Industry Act, attention is now shifting from institutional reform toward operational performance.

The central challenge before the reform committee is therefore not simply how to refine policy. The real task is ensuring that Nigeria’s petroleum investment cycle from exploration to production moves faster, more predictably, and with greater strategic alignment.

This article is the first in a three-part series intended to contribute constructively to that effort. The objective is to highlight practical mechanisms through which the reform team can accelerate sector outcomes quickly. This first article focuses on aligning exploration activity, drilling capacity and project execution, which together form the core investment cycle of the petroleum industry. The second article will examine financial engineering mechanisms that can unlock large-scale capital flows into the sector. The third will address long-term industry sustainability within Nigeria’s evolving global energy context.

Nigeria’s petroleum sector already has a modern governance framework. The institutional structure established by the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) aligns with widely accepted global standards. Commercial participation in upstream projects is now managed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited. Upstream regulation is overseen by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, while midstream and downstream infrastructure are under the jurisdiction of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority. The division of commercial and regulatory functions enhances transparency and helps to reduce institutional conflicts that have historically complicated sector governance.

However, institutional design alone does not ensure sector performance. Institutional theory suggests that the success of governance structures ultimately depends on how institutions work together. The speed at which decisions are made across organisations, the coordination of approvals, and the ability to resolve operational bottlenecks all affect investment rates.

Nigeria’s deepwater development history clearly demonstrates this. Projects such as Bonga, Agbami, and Egina required coordination among operators, international partners, the national oil company, the upstream regulator, and midstream infrastructure authorities. Each institution operated within its statutory mandate, yet approvals often occurred sequentially rather than simultaneously. This led to prolonged project durations. Offshore developments in Nigeria frequently take 8 to 12 years from discovery to first oil, with several projects requiring more than six years between field development approval and production. These timelines remain among the longest in the offshore industry.

At the same time, exploration activities have slowed significantly. Nigeria’s proven reserves currently stand at approximately 37Billion barrels, below the long-standing national goal of reaching 40Billion barrels. Without renewed exploration momentum, future production will increasingly rely on mature fields already in natural decline. The causes of this slowdown are often misunderstood. Nigeria’s geological potential remains substantial. The deeper structural issue lies in the design of the exploration ecosystem itself.

One of the least discussed constraints is drilling capacity. Nigeria does not fully control its pace of exploration. Exploration drilling remains largely dependent on the global rig market. When drilling demand increases in regions such as Brazil, Guyana, the United States Gulf of Mexico, or the Middle East, rigs move to those higher-margin basins. When global demand weakens, rigs return to Nigeria, often at higher costs and with long mobilisation delays. This dependence on external drilling cycles creates an irregular exploration rhythm that undermines reserves replacement and long-term planning. Exploration campaigns are postponed, drilling programmes become inconsistent and the overall investment cycle slows.

These challenges-declining exploration activity, dependence on volatile rig markets and extended project development timelines are frequently treated as separate issues. In reality, they are symptoms of a single structural weakness: Nigeria’s petroleum investment cycle is misaligned. Exploration does not feed seamlessly into drilling. Drilling does not transition efficiently into development. Development does not move quickly enough into production.

Nigeria, therefore, needs a mechanism to align exploration policy, drilling capacity, and project execution within a coherent national strategy. Such a mechanism should not create additional bureaucracies; instead, it should act as a coordination tool that synchronises institutions and stabilises the investment cycle.

One possible solution and an important toolkit for the reform team would be the creation of a National Exploration and Drilling Acceleration Programme (NEDAP)

This programme would not replace existing institutions. Its purpose would be to connect them. Anchored within the Presidency and implemented in coordination with sector regulators and industry stakeholders, the programme could serve as the strategic platform through which exploration, drilling and project development move in a coordinated and predictable manner.

Its main responsibility should be to establish a continuous national exploration pipeline that identifies priority basins, planned drilling campaigns, and projected timelines over several years. Such a pipeline would give investors greater visibility and help Nigeria transition from sporadic exploration efforts to a well-organised national exploration strategy.

Its second responsibility would involve stabilising drilling capacity through commercially structured joint ventures between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and international drilling contractors, as seen with other International Oil Companies (IOC) and NOCs investing in drilling capacity (TOTAL-Vantage JV; ARAMCO-ARO, Arabian Drilling Co). These partnerships could anchor exploration rigs within Nigeria’s basins, providing predictable access to drilling infrastructure and reducing dependence on volatile global rig markets. These arrangements would remain commercially driven rather than state-operated, thereby avoiding the inefficiencies historically associated with government-owned drilling fleets.

A third function would involve developing an exploration-to-development acceleration framework that synchronises regulatory approvals across the upstream regulator, midstream infrastructure authorities, and commercial partners, including Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited. This approach does not weaken regulatory oversight; it enhances it by ensuring approvals occur in parallel rather than sequentially.

Encouragingly, we see strong production traction in the onshore Niger Delta, but it will be hard work to find any of the parties here to deliver 100,000 Bbl./day of incremental production in the next three years.  Nigeria’s upstream sector is already beginning to regain investment momentum. Several major projects are progressing towards final investment decisions that could transform the country’s production outlook. Among the most notable are Bonga North, the long-awaited Bonga Southwest–Aparo, the Zabazaba–Etan Project, the Owowo Field, and the Ubeta Gas Field. Collectively, these developments represent tens of billions of dollars in potential investment and a significant opportunity to revitalise Nigeria’s offshore production base.

Ensuring these projects progress smoothly from approval to production will be a crucial test of Nigeria’s reform momentum. The global upstream landscape is becoming more competitive. Capital is moving towards jurisdictions that offer predictable project timelines, stable regulatory environments, and reliable operational infrastructure.

Nigeria possesses the geology, the technical expertise and a modern governance framework. What remains is operational alignment. The industry must be able to move efficiently from discovery to production.

The Presidential Petroleum Reform and Value Optimisation Taskforce therefore has an opportunity not only to refine policy but also to strengthen the operational foundations of Nigeria’s petroleum system. By aligning exploration activity, drilling capacity and project execution within a coherent national framework, the reform effort can accelerate sector growth while reinforcing investor confidence.

“Exploration drilling remains largely dependent on the global rig market. When drilling demand increases in regions such as Brazil, Guyana, the United States Gulf of Mexico, or the Middle East, rigs move to those higher-margin basins. When global demand weakens, rigs return to Nigeria, often at higher costs and with long mobilisation delays. This dependence on external drilling cycles creates an irregular exploration rhythm that undermines reserves replacement and long-term planning. Exploration campaigns are postponed, drilling programmes become inconsistent and the overall investment cycle slows.”

Ultimately, Nigeria’s petroleum reforms will be judged not by the institutions established or the policies declared, but by how swiftly discoveries are turned into producing fields and by unlocking the industry’s true potential for national growth.

Emeka Eboagwu, Ph. D, CMILT, fACSC, is a global social sustainability expert and energy economist based in the United Kingdom whose work focuses on petroleum sector governance, supply chain sustainability and energy policy reform.

Contact: eeeboagwu@gmail.com

Prepared by: Dimeji Bassir / March 2026

OPINION/INSIGHT

A Critical Assessment of Promise, Pitfalls, and the Imperative of Substance Over Strategy

Background and Context

On March 13, 2026, President Bola Tinubu announced the Presidential Petroleum Reform & Value Optimisation Taskforce — a nine-member body chaired by Fola Adeola, co-founder of Guaranty Trust Bank, tasked with producing three reform blueprints within six months. The announcement arrives at a particularly fraught moment. Nigeria averaged just 1.46Million barrels per day (BOPD) in 2025, some 500,000 BOPD below its own budget target of 2.06MMBOPD, generating a revenue shortfall exceeding $6.8Billion in the first eight months of the year alone. By January 2026, crude output had slipped further to 1.31MMBOPD — a 190,000BOPD deficit against Nigeria’s OPEC allocation.

These are not marginal misses. They reflect a structural and governance failure playing out against a backdrop of acute institutional turbulence. In April 2025, President Tinubu sacked the entire NNPC board, replacing Group CEO Mele Kyari with Bayo Ojulari, former Managing Director of SNEPCO, the UK major Shell’s deepwater subsidiary in Nigeria. A widely circulated industry fable captured the deeper dysfunction: an “Energy Whisperer” — a well-positioned presidential adviser — allegedly meddled in NNPC’s operational turf while the Chief Barrel Keeper (the GCEO) watched helplessly as committees replaced drilling plans. Meanwhile, the Attorney-General of the Federation communicated sweeping PIA amendments that would merge NUPRC’s regulatory role with that of a commercial operator, vest all NNPC shares in the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), and make the NNPC board subordinate to shareholder directives — changes that drew sharp warnings of re-politicisation and investor flight. It is against this combustible backdrop of turf wars, legislative overreach, and chronic underproduction that the new Taskforce must be assessed.

The Taskforce Membership: Credibility and Composition

The membership profile is the taskforce’s most credible feature. Fola Adeola brings the financial rigour of a co-founder who built GTBank into one of Africa’s most admired institutions. Ademola Adeyemi-Bero, founder and CEO of First Exploration & Petroleum Development Company (First E&P), provides 38 years of upstream operating experience — precisely the operational intelligence that previous reform committees have lacked. Osagie Okunbor, former Chairman of Shell Companies in Nigeria, adds the perspective of someone who navigated the structural challenges of Niger Delta operations and Shell’s onshore divestment process. Abubakar Suleiman, CEO of Sterling Bank, contributes capital markets expertise directly relevant to the liquidity unlocking mandate. What is perhaps most notable is what the composition avoids: career civil servants, political surrogates, and the consultants whose PowerPoint slides have long substituted for policy in Abuja.

The Case For: Arguments in the Taskforce’s Favour

1. Coordination Amid Structural Chaos

The fable’s core insight— that the sector is drowning in competing directives and overlapping committees — is grounded in reality. The proposed PIA amendments reveal different arms of the executive pulling in contradictory directions simultaneously: one seeking to commercialise NNPC, another to re-politicise it under MOFI, a third allegedly intervening in GCEO-level decisions. The presidential directive that all existing committees align under the taskforce is, at minimum, an attempt to impose a single coherent architecture on this dysfunction.

2. Technical Focus and a Credible Capital Mandate

The explicit framing as a “technical reform body rather than a representative committee” matters. Nigeria’s reform history is littered with committees whose compositions were dictated by geopolitical balance rather than expertise — the PIA took two decades to pass partly for this reason. A leaner, technically constituted body reporting monthly to the President, with an interim report at three months and final outputs at six, carries a more credible accountability structure. Its Capital & Liquidity Acceleration Blueprint, targeting $5-10Billion in sectoral liquidity, is the most consequential deliverable: the administration has already attracted $17Billion in new investments since 2023, and a 50-block licensing round was held at year-end 2025. The taskforce could provide the regulatory scaffolding and near term operational guidelines needed to convert signed commitments into near term barrels — the most important metric for an oil producing nation.

The Case Against: Structural and Systemic Risks

1. Another Committee in a Sector Drowning in Them

Barrels do not emerge from strategy documents or roundtables — they emerge from well- work, maintenance, and operational discipline. Nigeria’s 2025 production shortfall was driven by infrastructure bottlenecks, security challenges, regulatory approval delays, and underinvestment in infill drilling. None of these yield to a six-month blueprint. The risk is that the taskforce becomes another procedural layer substituting for the hard work of actually lifting crude.

2. The Implementation Gap

Nigeria’s reform history is a history of reports filed and forgotten. The PIA — signed after two decades — has already faced contested, politically driven amendment attempts by the very administration that inherited it. A taskforce that dissolves upon final report submission has no institutional stake in execution. Its blueprints will be only as durable as the political will to implement them, which has historically evaporated the moment the next crisis demands attention.

3. Governance Contradictions and Scope Overreach

The AGF’s proposed amendments — merging NUPRC’s regulatory and commercial roles, subordinating the NNPC board to MOFI — represent precisely the re-politicisation the PIA was designed to prevent. The taskforce must navigate this contradiction without alienating the executive branches that created it or the investors it needs to attract. It is also, in practice, a parallel policymaking structure operating alongside the Ministry of Petroleum, NNPC, NUPRC, and the Special Adviser on Energy. The Energy Whisperer did not lack a mandate — the problem was accountability. The taskforce risks the same outcome if these political exposures go unmanaged.

4. The Operational Depth Gap

The taskforce’s membership skews toward banking, entrepreneurship, and high-level energy management rather than field-level petroleum engineering. Nigeria’s production crisis is fundamentally operational: ageing infrastructure, deferred maintenance, sub­optimal reservoir management, and underfunded well-work programmes. The reforms most likely to move the needle — accelerated well interventions, fast-tracked JV cash call resolutions, creative financing mechanism, security-enabled field access — require sub­surface technical expertise that is currently underrepresented in the group.

Recommendation: Shore Up the Taskforce with Operational Firepower

The most urgent gap to close is upstream operational depth. An authoritative September 2025 op-ed I wrote in Africa Oil+Gas Report, argued that Nigeria’s incremental barrels are hiding in plain sight — not in new licensing rounds or sweeping OML-level divestments, but in disciplined, field-level execution on assets that already exist. The evidence is compelling: First E&P’s phased development of OMLs 83-85 and Elcrest’s transformation of OML 40 from 3,000 to over 30,000 BOPD both succeeded through technically rigorous, field-specific strategies. A government committee that proposed NNPC divest a minimum 25% equity stake in select Joint Ventures at the OML level — without specifying how production growth would follow — missed this lesson entirely.

Ademola Adeyemi-Bero — founder of First E&P, the very company that exemplifies field- level execution — is the taskforce’s single greatest operational asset. But one experienced operator cannot serve as the sole technical engine of a body tasked with restructuring an entire sector. He needs to be backed.

The taskforce should be formally augmented with a dedicated Technical Working Sub­Group comprising reservoir engineers, well intervention specialists, production technologists, and field development planners drawn from both the NNPC system and the independent operator community. This sub-group should focus exclusively on the zero-to- eighteen-month production recovery horizon. Its first task should be an independent review of NNPC’s Project Fit for Purpose — the corporation’s own well remediation and field management programme — stress-tested against a granular well-by-well, reservoir- by-reservoir assessment of production candidates across the NNPC Joint Venture and NEPL-controlled asset base. That level of technical granularity is the only credible basis on which the Capital & Liquidity Acceleration Blueprint can distinguish between capital that generates incremental barrels and capital that generates incremental bureaucracy.

The Implementation Toolkit for Immediate Structural Fixes should include a dedicated work stream mapping the regulatory, financial, and contractual bottlenecks — cash call arrears, slow work programme approvals, JV partner disputes — that routinely defer well interventions that are technically ready to execute. On the divestment architecture, the taskforce should favour a field-level farm-down model anchored on clustering fields around defined 2P reserves thresholds over OML-level equity sales. This approach aligns investor incentives with production growth rather than mere ownership transfer, and it is the architecture validated by Nigeria’s most successful indigenous operators. The recent security improvements across the Niger Delta represent a narrowing window: exploiting them requires a queue of execution-ready subsurface work programmes, not another round of feasibility studies. With proper operational backing working alongside Adeyemi- Bero, the taskforce is the right instrument to build and validate that queue.

Conclusion: Strategy Without Substance is the Enemy

The Presidential Petroleum Reform & Value Optimisation Taskforce is, in conception, better designed than most of its predecessors. Its membership has genuine credibility. Its mandate is time-bound. Its framing as a technical rather than representative body is structurally sound. And the urgency that animates it — a sector losing billions in unrealised revenue while targets slip year after year — is not manufactured.

But the fable’s moral — that in a land where strategy replaces substance, the ground may be full of oil while the treasury runs on empty — is a warning the taskforce must take seriously. The six-month clock is running. The Energy Whisperer’s playbook of endless frameworks and glossy blueprints is precisely what this initiative was established to supersede. The difference between this taskforce and every committee that came before it will not be determined by the quality of its reports. It will be determined by whether those reports translate, within a politically volatile environment, into barrels actually lifted and revenues actually remitted.

For that to happen, the President must do something historically difficult: insulate the taskforce from the governance pressures — ministerial interference, turf wars, and premature legislative rewriting — that have undermined every prior reform effort. The Chief Barrel Keeper’s plea remains the right one. Let the work be done. The Taskforce’s job is to remove the obstacles. Whether it can do so, in six months, against the full weight of Nigerian institutional inertia, is the only question that ultimately matters.

“Barrels do not emerge from strategy documents or roundtables — they emerge from well- work, maintenance, and operational discipline. Nigeria’s 2025 production shortfall was driven by infrastructure bottlenecks, security challenges, regulatory approval delays, and underinvestment in infill drilling. None of these yield to a six-month blueprint. The risk is that the taskforce becomes another procedural layer substituting for the hard work of actually lifting crude.”

Sources: State House Press Release (March 13, 2026); Petroleum Industry (Amendment) Bill, 2025; PIA Amendment Industry Commentary; NUPRCProduction Data 2025-2026; Punch, Vanguard, OilPrice.com, EcoPrn Agency; DimejiBassir, “Finding Nigeria’s Elusive Incremental Oil Barrels, “Africa Oil+Gas Report, September24, 2025.

Dimeji Bassir, Managing Director of Ofserv,  is a value-driven executive with 25+ years of operational, consulting and commercial experience across multiple verticals in the global (USA, Africa, Europe) energy industry. Previous roles include Country Manager, Nigeria at GE Oilfield Technology (2008 – 2010). He is a frequent contributor to Africa Oil+Gas Report.

By Emeka Eboagwu

This op-ed responds to the current global energy crisis and its impact on the refining capacity of the global South. The closure of the Hormuz shipping window highlights where we need to be as a country. Nigeria cannot afford to find itself in a situation of continuous oil price shocks.

Nigeria is on the verge of a new chapter in its petroleum economy, yet it begins that journey with a structural weakness that threatens progress. The commissioning of the Dangote Refinery, with a refining capacity of about 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day and a planned expansion to over 1.4Million  barrels per day, has enabled the country to move from a model in which crude oil was exclusively exported and refined products were imported to one in which domestic refining can become the core of the national fuel supply. This shift is historic. However, it also reveals a significant flaw in Nigeria’s energy infrastructure. The country has developed large-scale refining capacity without establishing the strategic crude storage system necessary to ensure continuous operation during supply disruptions. This isn’t about a privately run refinery; it’s about Nigeria’s energy security and strategic positioning in the global energy narrative.

The absence of a strategic reserve becomes more evident when distinguishing between oil underground and oil stored above ground. Nigeria has about 37Billion barrels of crude oil reserves beneath the surface. These reserves are often seen as a sign of national strength. However, in practical terms, they offer no protection during a crisis. Oil stored underground cannot keep refinery operations running if pipelines are vandalised, flow stations are shut down, evacuation infrastructure fails, or production systems are temporarily stopped. Reserves underground indicate geological potential. Strategic reserves reflect logistical capability and the National Continuity Plan. The former measures resource wealth, while the latter indicates energy security.

A refinery operating at the scale of the Dangote complex relies on a steady flow of crude feedstock. Even a brief supply disruption can halt refinery operations. Nigeria’s upstream sector remains vulnerable to pipeline sabotage, crude theft, infrastructure failures, and weather-related disruptions. If crude supply were interrupted for just 48 hours, a refinery processing over 500,000 barrels per day could be forced to close. Without a strategic reserve of crude oil, the country risks replacing dependence on foreign refineries with reliance on fragile domestic supply chains.

Other countries recognised this reality decades ago. After the 1973 Oil Crisis, advanced economies understood that energy security involved more than just access to resources. It also required physical stockpiles that could stabilise domestic supply during geopolitical disruptions. Under the auspices of the International Energy Agency, many nations established emergency reserves totalling at least 90 days of net oil imports.

The most notable example is the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve operated by the United States. This reserve has a design capacity of approximately 714Million barrels stored in underground salt caverns along the Gulf Coast. According to the United States Department of Energy, the total cost of establishing the reserve has been around $25Billion. About $5Billion was needed to build the storage infrastructure itself, while over $20Billion was spent on acquiring the crude oil inventory that fills the caverns. The system enables the United States to release millions of barrels of oil per day during supply emergencies, stabilising domestic markets and moderating price shocks.

A second example is found in India, which built underground strategic petroleum storage facilities at Visakhapatnam, Mangalore, and Padur. India’s initial reserve phase created a capacity of roughly 37Million barrels and required an investment of approximately $600 million for the storage infrastructure. The oil used to fill these caverns represents a much larger financial commitment, again illustrating that the cost of acquiring crude inventory usually exceeds the cost of constructing the storage facilities themselves.

China has developed one of the world’s fastest-growing strategic petroleum reserve systems over the past 20 years. Its multi-phase programme includes both government-controlled storage and commercial stockpiles integrated into national energy planning. Although official cost figures are rarely published, analysts estimate that China’s reserve system now holds several hundred million barrels of crude oil, with required investments measured in tens of billions of pounds when infrastructure and inventory are combined.

These examples show that strategic petroleum reserves are not just theoretical policy tools but real infrastructure that supports national energy security. They also highlight an important financial point. The most costly part of a strategic reserve is not the storage facility but the oil it stores.

Applying these lessons to Nigeria indicates that establishing a strategic reserve is financially practical if implemented gradually. Suppose the reserve were initially designed to safeguard domestic refining operations at a scale of approximately 550,000 barrels per day. A 30-day reserve would require roughly 16.5 million barrels of crude oil. If crude prices are $90 per barrel, the cost to fill such a reserve would be about $1.5 billion.

The infrastructure needed to store this oil would cost considerably less. International experience shows that storage infrastructure generally costs between $5 and $17 per barrel, depending on geology and facility design. For a reserve of 16.5Million barrels, this suggests infrastructure investment of approximately $80Million to $280Million. The total expense of establishing a 30-day strategic reserve would therefore likely fall between $1.6Billion and $1.8Billion.

Increasing the reserve to 45 days of coverage would require about 24Million barrels of storage capacity and a total investment of roughly $2.4Billion to $2.6Billion. A 90-day reserve, similar to those held by major industrial nations, could cost up to $5Billion, depending on oil prices at the time the reserve is filled.

In Nigeria’s petroleum economy, these figures are notable but not prohibitive. Over the past 20 years, the country has spent billions of dollars managing fuel import crises, supporting subsidy schemes and covering losses from supply disruptions. A strategic reserve is an investment in resilience that could lessen the economic harm caused by such disruptions.

The strategic importance of such a reserve is further reinforced by the ongoing vulnerability of global oil supply routes. One of the most crucial chokepoints in the worldwide petroleum network is the Strait of Hormuz. A significant portion of global oil exports passes through this narrow maritime passage. Military tension, shipping disruptions, or withdrawal of insurance in this area can swiftly cause price surges across international markets. The 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq and Khurais facilities temporarily removed nearly six million barrels per day from the global market and highlighted how quickly supply shocks can spread through the energy system.

For a country that intends to rely on domestic refining as the foundation of its fuel supply, exposure to such disruptions creates significant vulnerability. Strategic reserves allow governments to release stored crude during supply shocks, ensuring that refineries continue operating while markets stabilise.

Nigeria’s situation also goes beyond national energy security. Many countries in West and Central Africa rely heavily on imported petroleum products transported via long maritime supply routes. If Nigeria succeeds in integrating large-scale refining with strategic storage infrastructure, it could become the region’s main petroleum supply hub. This would enhance the country’s economic influence within the growing regional trade framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Achieving this objective requires coordinated action across multiple government institutions. The Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources would establish national reserve targets and integrate the system into the country’s energy strategy. Operational responsibility would fall largely to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, which would manage crude procurement, stock rotation and emergency release procedures. Regulatory oversight would be provided by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority to ensure compliance with stockholding standards and transparent management.

Economic and financial coordination would involve the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment. These institutions would develop investment frameworks capable of mobilising capital from private infrastructure investors, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and development finance institutions. Many strategic storage systems worldwide are financed through concession structures or public-private partnerships in which private operators build and manage storage facilities while governments lease capacity for emergency use.

Converting policy intent into operational capacity requires a disciplined implementation framework. The first step is to establish a legal requirement for strategic crude stockpiling, making the reserve a permanent national obligation rather than a discretionary programme. The second step is to select storage sites based on logistical efficiency, including proximity to refineries, pipelines, port infrastructure, and secure transport routes. The third step is to develop financing models that combine government oversight with private capital investment. The fourth step is to create operational protocols for stock rotation, quality monitoring, and emergency release procedures.

Taken together, these measures would transform strategic petroleum storage from a policy aspiration into a functioning national capability. Governance would provide institutional authority. Infrastructure development would create the physical capacity to store crude. Financing frameworks would mobilise capital investment. Operational integration would ensure that reserves function effectively during supply disruptions.

Nigeria’s energy transition now demands this level of strategic thinking. The country has built one of the largest refineries in the world but has yet to construct the storage architecture that such a refinery requires for long term stability. Oil in-situ represents potential wealth. Oil stored above ground represents operational security.

If Nigeria wishes to stabilise domestic fuel supply, protect its refining system and position itself as the anchor of regional energy markets, it must begin building a strategic crude reserve now. The opportunity exists to convert a structural vulnerability into a strategic asset. The question is not whether Nigeria can afford to build such a reserve. The more important question is whether it can afford the consequences of continuing without one.

Emeka Eboagwu (Ph.D), CMILT, fACSC, is a Global Social Sustainability Expert and an Energy Economist based in the UK., and can be reached via eeeboagwu@gmail.com

The Blame Game for Angola’s Crude Output Decline

After 10 years of continuous decline in crude oil production, Angolans are pointing fingers at themselves, in a blame game.

“The country experienced a 40.2% drop in crude oil production in the last 10 years, falling from an average production of 1.722Million barrels per day in 2016 to 1.029Million barrels/day in 2025 and is already the lowest value in a decade”, reports Expansão, the Angolan business journal.

“In annual terms, between 2024 and 2025, for example, production fell by 9%, from 411.5Million barrels to 377.5Million, according to data from the National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG)”.

Angola’s daily crude oil production raced past the 1Million mark in 2004, after three deepwater fields came on stream between 1999 and 2003.

Chevron operated Kuito field, discovered in 400metre water depth in 1997, reached the market early by 1999. TOTALEnergies operated Girassol Field (Block 17), nestled in 1,400metre water depth, was discovered in 1995, but it attained first oil in 2001. ExxonMobil’s Xikomba Field (Block 15 produced first oil in 2003, in 1,480metres of water.

Collectively, these three fields pumped over 500,000BOPD into the market in 2004, giving Angola an early lead in deepwater output over Nigeria which, at the time, was producing less than 40,000BOPD from ENI’s Abo field.

By 2010, Angola had beaten Algeria to the third highest crude oil producer in Africa. The global energy press, at this time, was projecting that Angola would become the continent’s highest crude oil producer.

Instead…

Read more

OPEC+ has decided to increase its crude oil production target by 206,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) for April 2026, against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical risk as conflict in the Middle East escalated rapidly over the February 28 to Mach 1, 2026 weekend.

“Oil markets will enter the new week facing a materially higher risk of supply disruption following the sharp escalation on Saturday, which included direct military confrontation between key regional actors and retaliatory strikes across the Persian Gulf region”, Rystad Energy says in a release.

“Approximately 15MillionBOPD (15MMBOPD) of crude transits the Strait of Hormuz, representing close to 30% of global seaborne crude trade”, making it the world’s most critical oil chokepoint, the Norwegian market reader explains.

“Any sustained disruption, formal or de facto, would remove a substantial portion of globally traded crude from the market”.

Jorge Leon, senior vice president and head of Rystad’s geopolitical analysis, sees the US and Israeli strikes in Iran, killing several members of the country’s political and military leadership, as incidents that fundamentally reframe global markets.

OPEC+ has interpreted them as opportunity

“What began as a widely anticipated 137,000BOPD increase, in line with OPEC+’s cautious unwinding of cuts, quickly became far more consequential as tensions in Iran drew attention to critical Middle Eastern export infrastructure the world relies on “, Leon explains.

“The group ultimately raised output beyond that initial expectation but stopped short of a more forceful increase, underscoring the tightrope it is walking between responding to near-term geopolitical risk and avoiding oversupply later this year.

”The bigger issue is physical reality: roughly one-fifth of global oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for world trade, meaning markets are more concerned with whether barrels can move than with spare capacity on paper.

”If flows through the Gulf are constrained, additional production will provide limited immediate relief, making access to export routes far more important than headline output targets.”

Leon reports that ahead of the attacks, ”Saudi Arabia has already been increasing exports in recent weeks, with shipments reaching their highest level in three years, indicating that part of the supply adjustment was already underway ahead of the formal decision”.

The Rystad analysis admits that ”206,000BOPD is small, relative to global demand of more than 100MMBOPD million bpd – on its own, it does not materially change the balance In absolute terms,.

”The decision is therefore more about signaling than about volume”.

OPEC+ is showing it is prepared to use spare capacity if needed, but it is not willing to open the taps aggressively at this stage.

This also underlines that OPEC+ needs to manage spare capacity carefully.

”Effective spare capacity currently stands at around 3.5MMBOPD – a critical buffer that cannot be deployed too quickly without reducing the group’s ability to respond to a larger disruption. Importantly, this increase is unlikely to calm markets in the immediate term.

”Price direction on Monday, March 2, 2026, will depend far more on developments in the Gulf and the status of transit flows than on a 206,000-bpd adjustment to production targets”.