Nigeria Presses IOCs to Lift Oil Output: Can the 2.5m bpd by 2027 Goal Be Realistic?

Nigeria is putting pressure on international oil companies to raise crude oil production, with the minister asking for “concrete steps” and repeating a national target of 2.5 million barrels per day by 2027.

The problem is that the target sounds simple, but getting there is not. It requires more drilling, faster project delivery, fewer disruptions, and much stronger confidence that operators can invest and recover costs in a stable operating environment.

Where Nigeria is starting from

The government’s own baseline shows why the target is a tall order. Nigeria’s daily average oil production was put at about 1.6 million barrels per day in 2025, which is far below the 2025 budget benchmark of 2.06 million barrels per day.

That gap is not just a technical miss. Oil volumes feed directly into government revenue plans. When output comes in below target, revenue falls short, and budgets become harder to execute without extra borrowing or sudden spending cuts.

What the government is really asking IOCs to do

The message to operators is clear. Invest more, drill more, complete more projects, and remove the bottlenecks that keep barrels offline.

But Nigeria’s output challenges are not solved by a meeting or a speech. They usually come down to a few practical issues.

Security and pipeline integrity matter because even when production capacity exists, disruptions can stop crude from flowing.

Approvals and contracting speed matter because long timelines can turn viable projects into stalled projects.

Fiscal clarity matters because investors want predictable rules around taxes, costs, and dispute resolution before they commit fresh capital for multi-year projects.

Why investor confidence is part of the production story

Nigeria has heard ambitious production goals before. What makes a target believable is whether the operating environment supports it long enough for companies to commit money and equipment, hire rigs, drill wells, and bring new volumes online without repeated setbacks.

This is why warnings about overprojection keep coming up in the industry. A recent statement attributed to NNPC Limited leadership described how overprojection can hurt fiscal planning when oil prices and output fall below assumptions after spending plans are already built around them.

The point is simple. If Nigeria wants operators to invest harder, it must also make the investment case easier to trust.

The metric to watch next

The best near-term signal is not the 2.5 million bpd headline. The real test is whether Nigeria can sustain production consistently above recent levels for months without major disruptions, and whether new investment decisions begin to appear in public. 

Look for signs like drilling campaigns restarting, stalled projects moving again, and clear regulatory support for new approvals and field plans.

If those indicators improve, the 2027 goal starts to look more like a plan. If they do not, 2.5 million bpd stays what it has been for years in Nigeria’s oil sector: an ambition that is easy to announce and hard to deliver.