KEY POINTS
- Nigeria approved 28 field development plans worth $18.2 billion in 2025, targeting 1.4 billion barrels of reserves.
- Crude production has rebounded to between 1.6 and 1.7 million barrels per day amid sector reforms.
- Minister Heineken Lokpobiri will represent Nigeria at the Invest in African Energy Forum in Paris on April 22 and 23.
Nigeria is arriving in Paris next month with a clear message: the sector is open, the reforms are working, and the numbers back it up.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Heineken Lokpobiri is set to speak at the Invest in African Energy Forum in Paris on April 22 and 23, 2026. He heads there with a strong recent record to present. In 2025 alone, Nigeria approved 28 field development plans valued at $18.2 billion, targeting an estimated 1.4 billion barrels of crude oil reserves. That is not a talking point. It is a pipeline.
Production is recovering and indigenous operators are driving it
Crude output has rebounded to between 1.6 and 1.7 million barrels per day. Increased drilling activity and the “Project One Million Barrels” initiative have pushed the recovery. Indigenous operators deserve significant credit here. Following divestments by international oil companies, local players stepped in and contributed an estimated 200,000 barrels per day to national production. That shift in asset ownership is reshaping who drives Nigeria’s upstream sector and how.
The Petroleum Industry Act has also changed the operating environment. Officials point to a more transparent and predictable fiscal regime, improved security conditions and clearer regulatory signals as reasons why investor confidence is returning.
Infrastructure progress adds to the investment case
On the infrastructure side, the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline, a $2.8 billion, 614-kilometer project, has completed its main line and is moving toward commissioning in 2026. At full capacity, it can deliver up to 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day to northern industrial and power markets. The Dangote Refinery, with a nameplate capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, is also increasing its operational activity. Efforts are underway to rehabilitate and expand pipeline networks to improve transport and export reliability.
Lokpobiri’s Paris appearance gives Nigeria a direct line to global capital at a moment when the country’s energy story is getting more compelling. The forum connects ministers, investors, project developers and financiers ahead of African Energy Week later in the year, making it one of the most consequential deal-making venues in the African energy calendar.
Nigeria wants that capital. The question Paris will answer is whether the world is ready to move with it.
