The Federal Government, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, has disclosed that it is taking major steps to save the oil and gas industry approximately $3 billion to $4.5 billion in operational costs this year. This was disclosed by the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Bayo Ojulari, in Lagos on Thursday in a keynote address at the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists’ 50th anniversary celebration.
Ojulari, who was represented by the company’s Executive Vice-President, Upstream, Udobong Ntia, said the company had already drawn up a roadmap that could push the cost savings target to $4.5bn by December 2025. He stressed that this cost optimisation drive is part of a wider national effort to attract $30bn in fresh industry investments over the next two years and $60bn by 2030, in line with a presidential directive.
“We’re taking another look at optimising our costs; we’re driving costs down. In the past three to six months, we have put up a roadmap to save about $3bn, which happens by the end of December, and we’re set to up that to about $4.5bn off our normal costs. We want to drive down our cost per barrel, per unit operating cost, and per unit technical cost. Let’s do the best we can to do more with less. I don’t think it’s impossible,” Ojulari said.
Ojulari disclosed that crude oil output has climbed steadily this year, rising from about 1.4 million barrels per day at the close of 2023 to over 1.8 million barrels per day by July 2025—a 400,000-barrel increase in just seven months. He credited this growth to industry-wide collaboration and major infrastructure improvements, including achieving 100 per cent operational availability of the Trans-Niger Pipeline for the first time in years.
