The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has trimmed $3.4 billion in costs over the past 12 months through sweeping restructuring of its joint venture and production sharing contracts, the company's chief executive revealed on Tuesday.
Bayo Ojulari made the disclosure at the NOG conference in Abuja, highlighting dramatic improvements in operational efficiency across the company's export infrastructure. He noted that NNPC achieved 98 percent recovery rates across its five crude oil export terminals between April 2025 and May 2026, a stark turnaround from the one percent recovery recorded at Bonny Oil and Gas Terminal in June 2022.
Nigeria's crude oil output has climbed to 1.71 million barrels daily, marking the strongest performance in five years. NNPC Exploration and Production Limited (NEPL) separately hit a record 365,000 barrels per day, according to Ojulari.
Gas production surged to 7.5 billion standard cubic feet daily, buoyed by completion of the River Niger crossing on the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) Gas Pipeline and opening of the ANOH Gas Processing Plant. The company maintained full compliance with all joint venture cash call obligations throughout 2025 and into June 2026, Ojulari said.
NNPC has signed major gas deals worth over $20 billion in associated investments since the last NOG Energy Week. The agreements cover 1.29 billion standard cubic feet daily for long-term liquefied natural gas feedstock and 750 million standard cubic feet daily for domestic industrial supply to DFL FZE and Dangote Refinery, with seven additional commercial transactions in development, he added.
The company resumed full monthly remittances to the Federation Account in July 2025 after months of disruption. Ojulari pointed to reinstatement of monthly performance reporting and the company's first-ever earnings call in November 2025 as evidence of renewed transparency commitments.
He pushed stakeholders to deepen relationships beyond simple transactions into genuine strategic partnerships. NNPC positions itself as an "ecosystem builder" connecting capital, technology, policy expertise and markets to generate sustained value for Nigeria and the continent, Ojulari said.
The energy industry remains deeply interconnected, with success depending on collective performance rather than individual strength, according to him. Producing fields require world-class technical partners capable of deploying advanced technology and operational rigour, while projects need robust financial institutions prepared to provide patient, competitive capital through commodity cycles, he explained.
Ojulari stressed that sufficient alignment remains elusive between resource owners and operators, investors and projects, innovation and execution, and policy and capital across Africa's energy sector.
