The Federal Government is considering a restructuring of asset ownership in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to address Nigeria’s dwindling crude oil production.

Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Ms. Olu Verheijen, disclosed this on Monday at the ongoing Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) Conference in Lagos.

She emphasised that achieving the government’s target of three million barrels per day would require “performance-based stewardship”, and questioned whether the NNPCL possessed the capacity to deliver the required growth.

According to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Nigeria’s oil output has fluctuated between 1.3 and 1.5 million barrels per day in the past two years.

Ms. Verheijen revealed that the NNPC Exploration and Production Limited (NEPL) currently produces only 220,000 barrels daily—about 10 per cent of national output—and expressed doubts about the company’s ability to finance and execute the large-scale drilling campaigns needed to boost production.

“Unlike during the era of international oil companies onshore, joint venture partners can no longer carry the NNPCL,” she said. “So we must ask the hard question: can the NNPCL deliver the incremental growth we need on its own balance sheet? If not, we must have the courage to restructure asset ownership and invite credible operators with technical capacity, financial depth, and governance discipline.”

She added that revitalising the sector would require courage and a results-oriented approach: “Revitalisation requires performance-based stewardship, not sentiment.”

Ms. Verheijen outlined what she termed the “four R’s” — reserves, revenues, reliability, and responsibility — as key benchmarks for reforming Nigeria’s energy sector.

On reserves, she said, “Exploration is not a PowerPoint slide. It is a risky business, but risk has a price, and clarity is the discount. Since 2023, under President Tinubu’s leadership, Nigeria has worked to restore that clarity.”

She called for faster action to attract fresh investments, warning that global competitors were not waiting. “We must move faster to attract exploration and production investment. Investors today are spoiled for choice and will only go where they can deploy capital easily and achieve strong returns,” she said.

The presidential adviser highlighted that the Tinubu administration had already unlocked over $8 billion in final investment decisions within 18 months, including the Ubeta, Bonga North, and HI projects, with another $20 billion in the pipeline.

“These are not just signatures; they are shovels in the ground,” she said. “We’re commercialising gas, expanding midstream infrastructure, and turning stranded molecules into bankable assets.”

Ms. Verheijen added that the government’s revenue strategy went beyond exports, focusing on domestic value creation through gas-to-power, LPG and CNG substitution, petrochemicals, and fertiliser production — all aimed at industrialising the economy and achieving energy self-sufficiency.