Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has urged the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to intensify efforts to push the country’s crude oil production from the current 1.84 million barrels per day (mbpd) to the long-targeted 2 mbpd benchmark. Speaking at a meeting in Abuja with NUPRC Chief Executive Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, Edun praised the regulator for engineering a sharp rebound in output after a February dip, while warning that consistency — not just headline numbers — is what will determine Nigeria’s fiscal stability. The push comes as the government tightens its grip on petroleum revenues through Executive Order 9 of 2026 and prepares to award fresh acreages under the 2025 licensing round, with President Bola Tinubu’s administration seeking to lock in higher oil receipts amid the energy-price tailwind from the Middle East conflict.
Key Overview
- Current production: Approximately 1.84 million barrels per day, up from a February low
- Government target: 2 million barrels per day (the “magic figure” cited by Minister Edun)
- NUPRC’s 2025 internal goal: 2.1 million barrels per day
- February dip explained: Disruptions on key oil facilities and scheduled turnaround maintenance
- Policy lever 1: The “drill or drop” clause in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), allowing NUPRC to revoke dormant leases
- Policy lever 2: Executive Order 9 of 2026, which redirects 30% Frontier Exploration Fund and management-fee deductions straight to the Federation Account
- Licensing round: The 2025 round is now in the technical and financial evaluation stage
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The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has urged the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to push the industry harder in a bid to hit two million barrels of oil production per day. The minister also commended the commission for piloting the petroleum sector to a production level of 1.84 million barrels in recent days. Edun made the call when the NUPRC Commission Chief Executive, Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, visited the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja.
Reacting to the production update from Eyesan, the minister said: “It is heartening that you can tell us that you are doing 1.84 million barrels per day. That is fantastic news. That is totally in line with the mandate of President Bola Tinubu.” Edun added: “Clearly, you have started on a very good note. Please keep it up.”
The finance minister described the war in the Middle East as unfortunate but stressed that President Tinubu had mandated an increase in production even before the crisis began, arguing that the geopolitical context made the push for higher output more urgent rather than opportunistic. “I wish you continued success. What matters is not just reaching certain heights but sustaining it. We don’t want any stopping along the way. The trajectory should be maintained and of course the magic figure is 2mbpd,” Edun stated.
A rebound from a sharp February dip
Speaking earlier in the meeting, Eyesan confirmed that recent daily crude oil production had reached 1.84 million barrels per day. “We are doing 1.84 million barrels per day. That is a remarkable feat but I am sure we will do more,” she assured the minister. The NUPRC chief executive attributed the prior dip in production in February to some unfortunate incidents on strategic facilities as well as turnaround maintenance, before adding that “all that has been fixed and we are seeing production ramping up.”
The scale of the rebound is significant. According to figures previously released by NUPRC and reported by Vanguard, oil and condensate production had declined to 1.48 million barrels per day in February from 1.62 million barrels per day in January — meaning that the regulator has effectively restored more than 350,000 barrels per day of lost output in a matter of weeks. OPEC’s own monthly data, cited by TVC News, painted an even starker picture, with Nigeria’s crude output briefly dropping to 1.31 million barrels per day in February before the recovery began.
The recovery matters far beyond the headline numbers. Crude oil and gas exports remain Nigeria’s single largest source of foreign exchange and federal revenue, and every additional barrel produced at current Brent prices flows directly into the federal budget at a critical moment for the Tinubu administration’s fiscal consolidation programme.
The “drill or drop” enforcer
A central pillar of NUPRC’s production push is the use of the “drill or drop” clause in the Petroleum Industry Act, which empowers the commission to revoke leases of dormant acreages held by operators who fail to develop them within stipulated timeframes. Eyesan expressed optimism over the growth of the petroleum sector in the near future, citing this enforcement tool as a key reason fresh barrels could come online quickly.
The NUPRC boss revealed that some of the acreages now being offered to investors could see production within as little as a year, adding that indigenous Nigerian companies are demonstrating impressive technical and financial capacity. That is a notable shift from the historical pattern in which new oil block awards in Nigeria often spent years tied up in litigation, financing delays, or speculative warehousing by holders with no realistic plan to drill.
With regard to the 2025 licensing round, Eyesan said the commission is now in the technical and financial evaluation stage, the phase in which bidders’ operational competence and ability to fund their work programmes are stress-tested before awards are finalised. NUPRC has previously stated that its internal target is to lift national production to 2.1 million barrels per day — a figure slightly above the political “magic number” cited by Edun.
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Executive Order 9: redirecting petroleum cash to the Federation
The other major instrument in the Tinubu administration’s revenue push is Executive Order 9 of 2026, signed by the president on 13 February 2026. Eyesan told the meeting that NUPRC had fully complied with the order, which directs the immediate suspension of the 30% Frontier Exploration Fund (FEF) deduction from profit oil and gas, alongside other management fees, and mandates the direct remittance of those amounts to the Federation Account.
The order targets two long-standing deductions embedded in the Petroleum Industry Act 2021. Under the PIA, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) was entitled to retain a 30% management fee on profit oil and profit gas derived from production sharing, profit sharing and risk services contracts, while a separate 30% slice of profit oil and gas was allocated to the Frontier Exploration Fund managed by NUPRC for exploration in Nigeria’s inland and frontier basins. Critics in government argued these deductions were both constitutionally questionable and fiscally damaging. According to one analysis, in 2025 alone, management fees and frontier deductions together amounted to approximately ₦906.91 billion — money the federal government now wants flowing directly into the central pool shared between federal, state and local governments.
A statement from the Federal Ministry of Information confirmed that the implementation committee for Executive Order 9 held its inaugural meeting on 26 February 2026, formally directing NNPC Limited to cease collection of the 30% management fee and the 30% frontier exploration fund deductions from profit oil and profit gas under Production Sharing Contracts with immediate effect. Remittances of gas flare penalties into the Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund (MDGIF) were also suspended.
A dedicated transition account has been created at the Central Bank of Nigeria, supervised by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation rather than the petroleum regulatory agencies. NNPC Limited’s role has been narrowed: while it no longer retains the 30% management fee, it maintains a functional role in lifting and commercialising the federation’s crude barrels, with proceeds deposited into the transition account and the company expressly restricted from accessing those funds once paid in.
A controversial reform
Executive Order 9 has not been without its critics. Senior legal practitioners have questioned whether the president can use an executive instrument to suspend provisions of an act of the National Assembly. The Nigerian Bar Association president Afam Osigwe SAN has argued publicly that “the president cannot, by executive order, modify or alter a law,” echoing concerns raised by other senior advocates about the constitutional reach of executive instruments.
Energy economists have raised separate concerns about the reform’s long-term effect on reserves growth. Professor Emeritus Wunmi Iledare, a respected Nigerian energy analyst, has argued in a position paper that Executive Order 9 prioritises urgent cash inflows over the oil industry’s long-term sustainability, warning that dismantling the Frontier Exploration Fund effectively removes operating capital from essential reserves-building efforts in inland and frontier basins. “Coordination strengthens reform; over-centralisation risks blurring statutory boundaries,” Iledare wrote.
The government’s counter-argument, articulated in legal briefings on the order, is that the constitutional principle that all federation revenues must be paid into the Federation Account under Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution overrides the deduction provisions in the PIA. A piece in BusinessDay framed Executive Order 9 as a constitutional intervention in Nigeria’s oil revenue architecture rather than an attempt to amend the PIA, arguing that any statutory provision permitting prior deductions may be inconsistent with the constitution and therefore void to the extent of that inconsistency.
For now, NUPRC’s full compliance with the order — confirmed publicly by Eyesan to the finance minister — sends a clear signal that the regulator is aligned with the Tinubu administration’s revenue-first posture, regardless of the legal debate.
Why 2 million barrels matters
The 2 mbpd target carries both economic and symbolic weight. Nigeria’s federal budget assumptions have for years been built around production benchmarks that the country struggled to meet, leaving a yawning gap between projected and actual oil revenues. Crude theft, pipeline vandalism, ageing infrastructure and underinvestment by international oil majors have all contributed to chronic underperformance. Restoring sustainable production above 2 million barrels per day would close much of that gap, ease pressure on the naira, and give the Central Bank room to rebuild foreign reserves.
The geopolitical backdrop only sharpens the incentive. With the conflict in the Middle East lifting global crude prices and disrupting flows through the Strait of Hormuz, every additional Nigerian barrel sold internationally is now worth significantly more than it was a few months ago. As Edun noted, however, the directive to ramp up production was issued well before the Middle East crisis began — meaning Nigeria is positioned to capture the windfall rather than scrambling to react to it.
For NUPRC’s Eyesan, the message from the meeting in Abuja was unmistakable. The political leadership is happy with 1.84 mbpd — but only as a stepping stone. The combination of stricter enforcement of dormant licences, a fresh wave of awards from the 2025 licensing round, and the diversion of previously retained petroleum cash into the Federation Account is meant to give Nigeria the operational and fiscal firepower to push past the 2 million barrel-a-day mark and, crucially, to stay there.
As Edun put it to the regulator: the trajectory must be maintained.
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