Nigeria has between 37 billion and 38 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, but rising refining capacity could expose the country to a future feedstock shortage unless upstream investment and field development accelerate, the President of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE), Mrs Cecilia Olajumoke Ajayi, has warned.
Ajayi said Nigeria has enough crude resources to supply its expanding refining industry, including large-scale and modular refineries, but stressed that the central challenge is turning the country’s substantial reserves into sustained production.
She spoke during a strategic panel session, “Can Nigeria Reliably Feed Its Refineries?”, at the Nigeria Oil Refining Summit 2026 in Lagos, where she called for faster development of undeveloped and marginal fields, greater investment in exploration and a new strategy for attracting investment into Nigeria’s largely unexplored frontier basins.
According to Ajayi, data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) puts Nigeria’s crude oil reserves at about 37–38 billion barrels, a resource base she said is sufficient to support the country’s existing and planned refining capacity.
“We have sufficient reserves to feed the refineries, not only the big refineries but also the modular refineries. What we need to do differently is to fast-track field development,” Ajayi said.
Refinery expansion raises crude supply question
Nigeria is expanding its domestic refining capacity as the country seeks to reduce dependence on imported petroleum products and strengthen domestic energy security.
Ajayi, however, cautioned that refinery expansion must be matched by growth in upstream oil production.
She said increasing refining capacity without corresponding investment in crude production could eventually create a feedstock supply gap, particularly as existing reserves continue to be depleted.
“If we are growing our refinery capacity, if we want to grow it sustainably, we need to put more investment into upstream. It should grow along with what we are looking at in the refinery,” she said.
The NAPE president said Nigeria therefore needs to move beyond focusing primarily on existing production and accelerate the conversion of discovered resources into producing assets.
Undeveloped Niger Delta fields offer immediate opportunity
Ajayi identified the large number of undeveloped fields in the Niger Delta as one of the most immediate opportunities for increasing crude oil production.
She said some of these fields are located close to existing infrastructure, creating an opportunity for operators to bring production on stream more rapidly by leveraging facilities already available in the region.
According to her, some operators have access to fields with nearby infrastructure but still spend considerable periods developing projects instead of taking advantage of existing facilities to accelerate production.
She also called for faster development of marginal fields, alongside the deployment of technically competent personnel capable of improving production from existing assets.
The approach, she said, could help Nigeria increase crude supply in the shorter term while longer-term exploration and frontier-basin development continue.
NAPE seeks new approach to frontier basins
Beyond the producing areas of the Niger Delta, Ajayi called for a different investment model for Nigeria’s frontier sedimentary basins.
She argued that government cannot expect investors to commit substantial sums to largely unexplored acreage where geological data remains insufficient to establish commercial potential.
While the Niger Delta remains Nigeria’s principal producing basin, she noted that several other sedimentary basins remain largely unexplored.
Ajayi said government could introduce incentives that allow investors to undertake initial exploration activities and generate geological information that could subsequently support wider investment.
“The last big round, you can see that 50 fields were given, were put out there, but most of those fields that were not taken are the frontier. We need to have another strategy for the frontier environment,” she said.
She questioned the practicality of imposing substantial financial obligations on investors before they have access to sufficient geological information about frontier acreage.
“If there is no data, you can’t tell people to go for fields that have no sufficient data. There is a way we can incentivise,” she said.
Let investors generate data before major financial commitments
Ajayi proposed allowing investors interested in frontier acreage to undertake a minimum level of exploration expenditure to establish the commercial potential of an asset before imposing heavier financial commitments.
Under the approach she outlined, investors could initially undertake agreed exploration activities, after which successful discoveries could lead to further negotiations with government.
Where exploration is unsuccessful, she suggested that the geological information generated could remain with government and become available to subsequent investors.
Such a model, she argued, would gradually expand Nigeria’s geological database while improving understanding of the country’s less-explored basins.
She pointed to the Niger Delta as an example of a region that was once considered a frontier area but subsequently developed into Nigeria’s dominant oil-producing basin following sustained exploration and investment.
‘We are depleting the 37 billion’
Ajayi stressed that the size of Nigeria’s reserves should not create a false sense of security.
She said every barrel produced reduces the remaining reserve base and that new discoveries and field developments must replace volumes being extracted if Nigeria is to maintain long-term crude supply.
“We are depleting the 37 billion. A few years from now, it will be 36. If we don’t replace it, how can we prepare ourselves to have feedstock for the refinery we are building?” she asked.
The warning places upstream exploration, field development and reserve replacement at the centre of Nigeria’s growing refining ambitions.
Ajayi, who is also Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of West African Exploration and Production Company Limited (WAEP), the upstream division of Dangote Group, called for stronger collaboration between government, regulators, operators and technical professionals to unlock additional production.
“There’s so many things we need to do differently. We need to take advantage of the God-given resources that we have,” she said.
Nigeria’s expanding refining industry is expected to alter the country’s petroleum supply landscape, with increasing domestic refining capacity potentially reducing reliance on imported refined petroleum products. Ajayi’s intervention highlights a parallel requirement: ensuring that the country’s upstream sector develops enough crude production to sustain that capacity over the long term.
