Distinguished members of the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce, Your Excellency the British Deputy High Commissioner, captains of industry, investors, regulators, development partners, ladies and gentlemen — good morning.
We meet under a theme that captures both the challenge and the promise of our time: energy in Nigeria, from potential to reality.
Nigeria has never lacked potential. We have oil. We have gas. We have sunlight, water, land, talent and scale. What we have lacked is conversion — the discipline to turn resources into results.
Reserves into production. Production into revenue. Gas into power. Power into productivity. Refining into supply security. And reform into confidence.
That is the work President Bola Ahmed Tinubu mandated us to do: to move Nigeria’s energy sector from promise to performance.
Energy is not simply a sector. It is the foundation of national competitiveness. When energy works, factories run, farms process, transport gets cheaper, and government can invest in its people. When energy fails, every Nigerian pays — in diesel costs, food prices, lost jobs and pressure on the naira. That is why energy reform is economic reform.
When we came into office, the sector was under severe strain. Subsidies had become fiscally unsustainable. Foreign-exchange distortions had weakened investment.
Production was below potential. Power-sector debt was strangling the gas-to-power chain. The country had resources, but the system was not converting them into national value. So our first task was to stop the bleeding and rebuild the foundations.
First, we restored fiscal credibility.
Removing the fuel subsidy and reforming the exchange rate were hard decisions — but necessary. The results are visible. Total federation revenue rose to about ₦21 trillion in 2024, up from roughly ₦12 trillion in 2023 — nearly doubling in a single year.
And despite deregulation, we have avoided the chronic nationwide petrol queues that once defined scarcity.
Local production of petrol has moved from effectively zero in 2023 to about 48 million litres per day — for the first time in a generation, the majority of the petrol Nigerians consume is now refined here at home, not imported.
And this is where energy reform meets the strength of the naira. For decades, every cargo of imported petrol was a standing demand for scarce dollars — a structural drain that weakened our currency. As local refining has risen, that drain has eased: petrol imports fell from about ₦2.3 trillion in the first quarter of 2025 to under ₦90 billion a year later.
Fewer dollars spent on fuel means less pressure on the naira. Energy security and currency stability are not separate goals. They are the same goal.
Second, we restored production and investor confidence.
Crude oil and condensate production averaged 1.64 million barrels per day in 2025 — up by roughly 400,000 barrels a day since 2023, and the highest onshore level in two decades.
Over four billion dollars in international oil company divestments were concluded — deepening indigenous participation onshore while the majors refocus on deepwater and integrated gas. Pipeline uptime is now consistently high, and illegal refining sharply reduced.
Every additional barrel matters — for revenue, for jobs, and for the strength of the federation.
Third, we brought capital back.
Capital is not moved by speeches. It is moved by clarity, competitiveness and confidence. Through targeted presidential directives we improved the environment for deepwater, non-associated gas and midstream infrastructure — and we attacked the cost of doing business.
Contracting that once took thirty-six months now takes around fourteen — and we are driving toward a target of six.
The market responded. Nigeria’s share of African upstream Final Investment Decisions rose from about four percent in the years to 2023 to roughly forty percent across 2024 and 2025 — with about ten billion dollars committed and a visible pipeline of some fifty billion ahead.
Stalled projects are moving again — Bonga North, Ubeta and HI gas developments and new non-associated gas developments that anchor long-term supply to our LNG exports. When Nigeria improves the rules of the game, capital returns to the field.
Fourth, we repositioned gas as the foundation for industrialisation.
For Nigeria, gas is not merely a transition fuel. It is a development fuel — central to power, fertiliser, petrochemicals, clean cooking, CNG transport, LNG exports and manufacturing.
Our proven reserves now stand at over 215 trillion cubic feet of gas, and gross gas production has risen from about 6.83 billion standard cubic feet per day in 2023 to about 7.63 billion today.
But the goal is not simply to produce more gas. It is to ensure Nigerian gas becomes Nigerian power, Nigerian products, Nigerian jobs and Nigerian exports. A nation does not grow wealthy by owning resources. It grows wealthy by converting them into value.
Fifth, we are restoring financial viability to the gas-to-power chain.
