The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, on Wednesday disclosed that the number of active oil drilling rigs in Nigeria have risen from about 14 to more than 60 under the President Bola Tinubu administration, resulting in over 1.7 million barrels per day output.
Lokpobiri, who spoke at the inaugural Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) Journal Summit in Abuja, attributed the development to the ongoing reforms in the petroleum industry, which he said were restoring investor confidence, improving regulatory certainty and creating conditions for increased private sector investment.
Represented by the Technical Adviser, Downstream, Emmanuel Sinime, the minister said Nigeria had also recorded more than $10 billion in foreign direct investment in recent years, while indigenous operators now account for more than 50 per cent of the country’s crude oil production.
The summit themed: “Private Sector Participation in Nigeria’s Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Sector: Prospects, Challenges and the Way Forward”, brought together government officials, regulators, industry operators, academics, researchers and other stakeholders.
Lokpobiri said the increase in crude oil production and drilling activity had to be matched by adequate infrastructure, efficient transportation and storage systems, expanded refining capacity and a competitive market capable of delivering value to consumers and investors.
He cited the emergence of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and the increasing operations of modular refineries, including Waltersmith and Aradel, as evidence of what private sector investment could achieve in the downstream industry.
The minister, however, said infrastructure deficits, regulatory uncertainty, logistics challenges, market volatility, exchange-rate movements and high transportation costs remained significant constraints to investment.
He stressed the need to strike a balance between regulation and the ability of businesses to operate, attract investment and create jobs.
On his part, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), EkperikpeEkpo, said the federal government could not develop Nigeria’s gas sector alone, stressing that private capital, technical expertise and innovation were critical to unlocking the country’s natural gas resources.
Ekpo said infrastructure gaps and high financing costs, alongside project development risks, regulatory bottlenecks and inadequate access to reliable energy infrastructure, remained major challenges confronting private investors.
He said the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) had provided an important framework for improving regulatory certainty, strengthening institutional governance and encouraging investment in the midstream and downstream sectors.
According to him, the Decade of Gas initiative is aimed at transforming Nigeria into a gas-powered industrial economy, with natural gas serving as a catalyst for industrialisation, job creation, energy security and economic diversification.
He said achieving the objective would require sustained investment in gas processing, transportation and distribution infrastructure, as well as liquefied petroleum gas, compressed natural gas, petrochemical and gas-based industries.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of PTDF, Prof. Shehu Aliyu, said the growing participation of private investors in refining, gas processing, logistics, storage and petroleum products distribution presented opportunities for economic growth, job creation, technology development and local capacity building.
Aliyu said the PTDF Journal would serve as an important platform for disseminating research findings, technical innovations, industry experiences and professional knowledge across the petroleum value chain.
He said the Fund was particularly interested in ensuring that research outputs moved beyond publication to application, intellectual property development and commercialisation.
“The journal provides a platform for disseminating research findings, technical innovations, industry experiences, and professional knowledge across the petroleum value chain. As a peer-reviewed, open-access publication, it connects researchers, academic world, industry professionals, and policymakers with new paradigms that translate knowledge into innovation, industry practice, and evidence-based policy.
“Thus, the PTDJ complements PTDF’s research and innovation programmesby offering a credible means to document and disseminate knowledge. The summit extends this role further by transforming ideas beyond the pages of the journal into dialogue, collaboration, and practical solutions for the industry,” he stated.
Keynote speaker and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Waltersmith Petroman Oil Limited, Oladapo Filani, said PTDF has sponsored more than 15,639 scholars across various programmes and higher institutions and supported more than 50,000 research projects.
Filani, however, said the evolution of Nigeria’s petroleum industry required focus beyond producing skilled Nigerians to creating an ecosystem where expertise could be retained and converted into technology, businesses and economic value.
“The challenge is no longer simply to produce skilled Nigerians, it is to retain that expertise, create opportunities to apply it and to convert knowledge into technology, businesses and economic value,” he said.
He identified infrastructure deficits and reliability constraints, human capital and technical capability gaps, financing, commercial viability and investment uncertainty as interconnected challenges requiring urgent attention.
Filani said Nigeria continued to face constraints in gas gathering and processing, pipelines, storage and terminals, distribution infrastructure, refining support infrastructure and product logistics.
He called for a deeper partnership between PTDF and the private sector, arguing that while the Fund could address human capital and technical capability constraints, private investment could provide the infrastructure and commercialisation needed to transform Nigeria’s energy resources into economic value.
Emmanuel Addeh
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