Domestic refiners transacted 112 million barrels of crude oil out of the 182 million barrels offered by producersbetween January and August 2026, leaving a 70 million-barrel gap in transactions, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has said.
The volume transacted represents 61.4 percent of the crude offered during the period, even though the 182 million barrels offered exceeded domestic refiners’ declared requirement of 154.6 million barrels.
NUPRC Chief Executive Officer, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, disclosed the figures on Monday at the third Nigeria Oil Refining Summit in Lagos. She was represented at the event by the commission’s Deputy Director, Boma Atiyegoba.
Eyesan said the volume offered by producers was equivalent to 118 percent of refiners’ declared crude requirement, indicating that the quantity made available was higher than the volume refiners had indicated they needed.
She, however, said the difference between crude offered and completed transactions should not be viewed as a failure by either producers or refiners.
According to her, the uncompleted transactions reflected a range of commercial and operational challenges affecting both sides of the market.
The issues include pricing, payment security, crude grade and delivery timelines.
While producers are concerned about payment security, reliability of offtake and existing export commitments, refiners are seeking greater certainty over crude availability, delivery schedules and pricing.
“This gap is not a failure on either side. It is a shared commercial challenge,” Eyesan said.
She said the commission was responding by improving visibility around refinery demand and producer availability, while strengthening its monitoring and compliance framework.
NUPRC also plans to deepen engagement with producers and refiners and enforce domestic crude supply obligations where necessary.
As part of efforts to address the logistics challenges, Eyesan disclosed that the commission had completed stakeholder consultations on a proposed domestic crude swap arrangement.
Under the proposed mechanism, producers located close to export terminals could exchange their domestic supply obligations with producers whose crude is geographically closer to local refineries.
The arrangement is expected to reduce transportation costs and delivery times while improving the availability of crude to domestic refineries and strengthening compliance with domestic supply obligations.
The commission is also pursuing measures to increase the volume of crude available to the domestic market.
Eyesan said NUPRC was accelerating field development and working to restore shut-in wells and marginal assets as refinery capacity expands and demand for crude increases.
She stressed that expanding refining capacity without increasing crude production would place additional pressure on an already limited supply base.
“Domestic refining cannot thrive by distributing a shrinking cake. It must be fed by a growing one,” she said.
The need to raise crude production was also highlighted by the Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Producers Group, Adegbite Falade, who said Nigeria must produce more crude to support the expansion of domestic refining.
“Nigeria cannot refine barrels that are not produced,” Falade said.
He argued that increasing production, rather than redistributing limited crude volumes among existing refineries, was necessary to sustain the country’s growing refining capacity.
Falade also called for stronger crude evacuation infrastructure and a transparent and investable domestic crude market to support higher production and reliable supply to local refiners.
The Domestic Crude Supply Obligation, provided for under Section 109 of the Petroleum Industry Act, operates on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis.
The latest NUPRC figures show that while crude offers have exceeded refiners’ declared requirements, commercial terms, logistics and supply reliability remain significant factors in converting offers into completed transactions.
The commission therefore maintains that sustaining Nigeria’s expanding domestic refining industry will require both more effective crude transactions and higher upstream production as refineries increase their demand for feedstock.