The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has disclosed that crude oil producers offered 182 million barrels to domestic refiners between January and August, of which 112 million barrels were transacted.
The 112 million barrels represent 61.4 percent of the volume offered, leaving a shortfall of 70 million barrels between offers and completed deals.
Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, NUPRC Chief Executive Officer, disclosed the figures, on Monday, at the third Nigeria Oil Refining Summit, in Lagos. She was represented by Mr Boma Atiyegoba, Deputy Director at the commission.
Eyesan said producers offered 182 million barrels against domestic refiners’ declared requirement of 154.6 million barrels during the period, meaning the volume offered stood at 118 percent of the refiners’ stated needs.
She stressed that the gap between offers and completed transactions did not amount to failure by either producers or refiners.
‘This gap is not a failure on either side. It is a shared commercial challenge,’ she said.
Eyesan attributed the incomplete transactions to issues such as pricing, payment security, crude grade and delivery timing. Producers, she noted, remained concerned about payment security, off-take reliability and existing export commitments, while refiners worried about crude availability, delivery schedules and pricing.
‘The Commission is listening, and we are active,’ she added.
She said NUPRC would improve visibility of refinery demand and producer availability, strengthen monitoring and compliance, deepen stakeholder engagement and enforce domestic supply obligations where necessary.
Eyesan disclosed that the commission had completed stakeholder consultations on a proposed domestic crude swap arrangement. Under the plan, producers located close to export terminals could swap their domestic supply obligations with those whose crude is nearer to local refineries. The mechanism, she said, would cut logistics costs and delivery times while improving crude availability and compliance.
She added that NUPRC was accelerating field development and efforts to restore shut-in wells and marginal assets, stressing that higher production was essential as domestic refineries expand capacity.
‘Domestic refining cannot thrive by distributing a shrinking cake. It must be fed by a growing one,’ Eyesan said.
Earlier, Mr Adegbite Falade, Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG) and Managing Director of Aradel Plc, warned that Nigeria must raise crude production to sustain its growing domestic refining capacity.
‘Nigeria cannot refine barrels that are not produced,’ Falade said.
He noted that in the medium term, domestic refineries could require more than 1.5 million barrels of crude per day, depending on rehabilitation, expansion and the commissioning of modular plants. This would approach Nigeria’s current liquids output of 1.68 million barrels per day as of August 2026, according to NUPRC data.
Falade said such demand would leave only a narrow margin for export commitments, government revenue needs, joint-venture offtake, production outages, OPEC obligations, grade mismatches and infrastructure disruptions. He therefore urged that the upstream sector be placed at the centre of the refining conversation.
Nigeria’s crude oil and condensate reserves stood at approximately 37.01 billion barrels as of January 1, 2026, with natural gas reserves at about 215.19 trillion cubic feet. The challenge, he argued, is converting reserves into production, production into secure supply and supply into competitive domestic refining.
Falade called for incentives for exploration, faster development of marginal fields, improved access to capital, protection of evacuation infrastructure and the creation of a transparent domestic crude market that allows volume aggregation, grade blending and efficient swaps.
He commended progress under the Domestic Crude Supply Obligation (DCSO) established by Section 109 of the Petroleum Industry Act, noting that compliance rose to about 97.4 percent in the second quarter of 2026 from roughly 41 percent in the first quarter. IPPG member companies, he added, now account for more than half of Nigeria’s total oil and gas production.
Also speaking, Mr Momoh Jimah Oyarekhua, Chairman of OPAC Refinery and of the Crude Oil Refineries Association of Nigeria (CORAN), said some domestic refineries still struggle to access crude on commercially viable terms even as fuel imports continue and local capacity remains underutilised.
He called for full institutionalisation of the Naira-for-Crude scheme, a domestic crude pricing template that reflects quality and delivery costs, stronger enforcement of the DCSO while preserving commercial arrangements, proximity-based crude swaps, progressive reduction of product imports, a refinery development financing framework, shared product infrastructure and strategic petroleum reserves.
Oyarekhua urged a clear national refining roadmap with targets for capacity, domestic market share and eventual export capability.
‘Nigeria should not continue exporting crude, exporting jobs and importing the same petroleum products at considerable economic cost,’ he said. ‘Our crude must increasingly power our refineries. Our refineries must increasingly supply our market. And Nigeria must ultimately become a refining hub for Africa.’