Nigeria’s crude oil rigs increased from 44 of last week to 46 yesterday, according to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
Its Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe, an engineer, made this known in Abuja during the Strategic Workshop for Media Practitioners organised by the NUPRC Public Affairs and Corporate Communications Unit.
He said: “And again, of course, I proudly, as of today (Wednesday), the last time I checked, because I have my dashboard that every day I check, I mean, that is performance evaluation, try to evaluate where we are on a daily basis.
“I have worked with a very resilient team that we are committed, I mean, to drive, to optimize, valorize our hydrocarbon resources. The re-count today is 46.”
Recall he had on July 2nd during the Nigerian Oil and Gas (NOG) Week 2025 announced a record of 44 rigs from the previous eight ones.
He recalled that the NUPRC took off when crude oil production was declining from one million barrels.
He explained that since as a regulator, NUPRC is mandated to do all things necessary to drive investment, it harnessed its efforts at raising production by one million additional units per year.
The Chief Executive said as at the time that one million project was launched in August 2024, crude oil production has soared by 300,000 barrels of oil per day.
He said: “Now we observe a positive data of about 300,000 barrels of oil per day. That is another achievement of which I am very proud of.”
According to him, Nigeria’s current output is currently about 1.7million barrels per day.
Komolafe said the feedback from the industry has been very exciting as the operators keep turning in positive reports.
He said President Bola Tinubu has been giving the oil sector adequate support in terms of the reforms.
Komolafe said the various Executive Orders: 40, 41, and 42, have to do with various tax incentives, tax remission, local content law and redefining the contracting circle and the threshold.
According to him, the executive orders have yielded very positive fruits in terms of the Final Investment Decision that have attracted huge amounts of money.
