Nigeria plans to hold an international roadshow to attract investments in its upstream sector, the petroleum regulator of OPEC’s biggest African oil producer said in a speech shared with Reuters.

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) plans to organize in the coming weeks an international roadshow to pitch upstream investments in the country, which looks to boost its oil production and significantly raise its natural gas output.     

NUPRC plans to organize in the coming weeks its first Nigerian Upstream International Investment and Financial Roadshow (NUIIFR) to allow upstream players to network and discuss financial structures to enable investment, representatives of the regulator said in a speech at a conference of the Society of Petroleum Engineers in Lagos earlier this week.

“Whereas the global imperatives for energy transition is clear and justified, the need for Africa’s energy security, economic development and prosperity cannot be overemphasised,” the Nigerian regulator said.

Nigeria aims to significantly increase its oil production to up to 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) by November 2023, hoping to win a higher quota in the OPEC+ agreement, Gabriel Tanimu Aduda, Permanent Secretary at Nigeria’s Ministry of Petroleum Resources, told Energy Intelligence last month.

Nigeria has consistently failed to produce to its quota in the OPEC+ agreement. The combination of pipeline vandalism and oil theft with a lack of investment in capacity has made Nigeria the biggest laggard in crude oil production in the OPEC+ alliance. Oil theft and pipeline vandalism have long plagued Nigeria’s upstream oil and gas industry, driving majors out of the country and often resulting in force majeure at the key crude oil export terminals.

Nigeria’s quota was 1.742 million bpd earlier this year, but due to its underproduction of more than 400,000 bpd, the output cap for Nigeria was lowered to 1.38 million bpd at the OPEC+ meeting in early June.

Oilprice.com by Charles Kennedy, August 8, 2023