In a major boost to the country’s energy transition goals, the Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund (MDGIF) has secured a total of N1.6 trillion in private-sector investment over a 20-month period to expand and modernise Nigeria’s gas infrastructure.
Oluwole Adama, the executive director MDGIF, disclosed this while giving his keynote address at the 2026 Energy conference organised by Association of Energy Correspondents in Abuja on Thursday.
Adama who was represented by Elvis Duruji, director, Strategy, Research and Deal Origination at MDGIF, explained that the investment is supporting 31 projects and 205 infrastructure assets across the country.
He added that the projects have the capacity to deliver about 475 million standard cubic feet (scf) of gas daily to the domestic market when fully operational.
He said, ‘We’ve been able to use about N671 billion to capitalize, attract capitals, of N1.6 trillion. So this is actually the whole objective of the PIA and that is what we’re doing. So the multiplier is approximately 2.4X of capital.
‘ We have 31 projects across every region, we have 205 infrastructures, So we have partnered with 31 projects and we have 205 infrastructures across every region. Then 127 has already commenced projects and 10 commissioned.
Adama noted that the leverage reflected MDGIF’s core mandate of using public funds to reduce investment risks and crowd in private capital.
He said, ‘The fund is a public fund, and we see platforms like this as an opportunity to come and account and state: ‘This is what we are doing.’
Adama explained that MDGIF was not established as a passive funding vehicle but as a catalytic platform designed to make projects bankable.
‘In MDGIF we make projects bankable even projects that may not look financially viable, but have national strategic importance when we subject them to our channel, we end up making them viable.’
According to him, the fund’s interventions had already mobilised private capital at about 2.4 times its own contribution, demonstrating the impact of its derisking model.
‘As we speak, MDGIF has used its own fund to mobilize 2.4X of the private counterparties so we’ve been able to use the fund we have to trigger and reduce the barrier to an extent where we now have many other private investors coming to partner with MDGIF, and this is the success story.’
The MDGIF ED added that the projects in the fund’s portfolio if fully executed, could raise domestic gas supply by about 25 per cent, based on current domestic production of about 1.9 billion scf daily.
‘As of today, if all the projects about 30 partnership projects we’ve run into and 1,205 projects ongoing if they are executed today, they will be churning out about 475 million scf per day of gas into the domestic market.’
On gas flaring, Adama disclosed that MDGIF had partnered four flare-out awardees whose projects, when operational, would monetise 444 million scf of gas daily that would otherwise have been flared, while eliminating about 2,845 metric tonnes of emissions per day.He said the fund had partnered 30 unincorporated joint ventures and one incorporated equipment leasing company, covering 20 CNG mother stations, more than 80 CNG daughter stations and another 75 daughter stations through the leasing company.Among its flagship interventions, Adama listed the 5 million scf mini-LNG plant by Topline Limited in Delta State which he described as Nigeria’s first indigenous mini-LNG project.The project, he said, had spent three years seeking financing before MDGIF’s equity intervention helped unlock an InfraCredit guarantee.
‘That particular project had gone around looking for funds for 3 years, but couldn’t get any. But when they partnered with MDGIF, today that facility will be commissioned in the next 2 to 3 months from now.’Other projects highlighted included CNG infrastructure involving 20 universities, Ibile Oil and Gas in Lagos and Rolling Energy in Abuja.He also noted that the MDGIF’s ultimate objective was to absorb part of the early risks confronting gas projects, making them attractive to lenders and private investors.
Adama explained that MDGIF was not established as a passive funding vehicle but as a catalytic platform designed to make projects bankable.Also speaking at the event, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, commission chief executive, Nigerian Upstream Pretroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) said the starting point for sustaining investment in Nigeria’s petroleum industry was economic value, stressing that resources in the ground would not automatically translate into prosperity.’For me, the starting point is economic value. Nigeria has a significant petroleum resource base, but resources in the ground do not, by themselves, create prosperity. This is why our responsibility at the Commission goes beyond regulating activity, we remain focused on creating the conditions that allow good projects to progress without incumberance,’ she said.Eyesan said Nigeria averaged about 1.68 million barrels per day of crude oil and condensate in August 2026, while crude production met the country’s OPEC quota for the fourth consecutive month.She said the development provided a stronger base for Nigeria’s production aspirations of two million barrels per day in the near term and three million barrels per day by 2030.According to her, achieving the targets would require bringing viable shut-in volumes back onstream, reducing production losses and ensuring operators progressed credible work programmes.Represented by Joseph Ogunsola, director, Surface Development at the NUPRC, Eyesan noted that sustained investment would be critical to unlocking the next wave of production, adding that capital would flow where opportunities were matched by clarity and certainty.’Investors need to understand the rules and the timelines before committing long-term capital. This is why regulatory predictability and speed remain important to us.’Eyesan disclosed that since 2024, the Commission had approved Field Development Plans representing more than $57 billion in investment, while 22 major offshore projects expected between 2026 and 2030 carried estimated investment potential of $30 billion to $50 billion.’The priority now is execution. Approvals and investment commitments are important, but their real value is realised when projects move and new volumes come onstream.’The NUPRC boss said the regulator was now focused on staying closer to projects, identifying bottlenecks and resolving them early enough to keep investment decisions moving, while holding operators accountable for their commitments.She said investment was returning to parts of the industry where activity had slowed, while opportunities that had stalled several years ago were being reconsidered.’We have to spend less time admiring the opportunity and more time converting it.
Our role as regulator is not to stand in the way of investment neither is it to lower the standards required to protect Nigeria’s interest.’The task is to regulate in a way that gives credible investors the certainty to deploy capital and the confidence to remain. I have said before that we want to grow the pie, because when you grow the pie, everybody benefits.’
Eyesan said sustaining investment also required Nigeria’s oil and gas industry to remain competitive as investors increasingly considered the efficiency of resource development and production alongside the underlying economics of projects.
She said the Commission’s Upstream Oil and Gas Decarbonisation and Sustainability Blueprint was designed to bring decarbonisation considerations into new developments at the Field Development Plan stage.
According to her, operators would be expected to consider energy efficiency, gas utilisation, flaring and emissions performance alongside the technical and commercial fundamentals of projects.
The NUPRC boss said the approach also covered existing assets through annual work programmes, asset-specific sustainability plans, asset integrity, predictive maintenance and energy optimisation.
She added that energy transition should not be viewed separately from the growth of Nigeria’s upstream sector saying, ‘It is about getting more value from the resources we produce, reducing waste and ensuring that both existing assets and the next generation of Nigerian projects remain competitive.
In his remarks, John Ofikhenua, Chairman of AECAF, said the conference was designed to provoke discussion on how Nigeria could retain and renew investor confidence in the hydrocarbon industry amid the global shift towards cleaner energy.
Ofikhenua, who regretted that investment had repeatedly suffered from major global developments, unfavourable policies and business decisions, cited the United States shale boom, COVID-19 and the global energy transition as developments that had affected investment flows into the petroleum industry.
According to him, the energy transition triggered divestments from Nigeria’s onshore oil assets, but subsequent global developments had again underscored the continuing importance of hydrocarbons to the world economy.
He said the Russia-Ukraine war and other geopolitical developments had demonstrated the continuing strategic importance of oil and gas to global energy security.
‘Surprisingly, it is a simple lesson that the darkest part of the night is usually close to dawn. Today, the narrative is changing in favour of investment in the nation’s hydrocarbon industry.’