The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the recent reset of Nigeria’s petroleum regulatory architecture through the appointment of new Chief Executive Officers for the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
According to the CPPE statement signed by Dr Muda Yusuf, the Chief Executive Officer, these appointments present a timely and strategic opportunity to reposition Nigeria’s oil and gas regulatory environment in line with the administration’s commitment to energy sovereignty, energy security, self-reliance, and accelerated production growth.
CPPE noted that the new leadership of the petroleum regulatory institutions must urgently recalibrate sector priorities toward reducing import dependence, expanding domestic capacity, and catalysing investments across the entire oil and gas value chain.
Domestic Refining Must Be the Downstream Priority
In the downstream segment, CPPE emphasised that strong and deliberate support for domestic refining must be an immediate and non-negotiable priority. Government policy, it said, should clearly favour locally refined petroleum products through targeted fiscal, regulatory, and infrastructural incentives for both public and private refineries, while actively encouraging fresh investments in refining capacity.
The Centre cautioned against the current policy distortions that place imported petroleum products in direct competition with locally refined products under unequal fiscal and regulatory conditions.
“This does not amount to fair competition,” CPPE stated. “Genuine competition can only exist when all operators function within the same policy, tax, and regulatory environment.”
CPPE urged the NMDPRA to place domestic refining at the centre of its policy framework, in alignment with President Tinubu’s Nigeria-First policy orientation and broader industrialisation agenda.
The organisation stressed that prioritising domestic refining goes beyond investor protection, noting that it is critical to safeguarding Nigeria’s long-term economic interests. A strong domestic refining base, CPPE argued, is fundamental to building a resilient, energy-secure, and sovereign economy, while also driving job creation, foreign exchange conservation, macroeconomic stability, and export-oriented growth.
“Domestic refining remains a critical pathway to backward integration and resource-based industrialisation,” CPPE added. “Supporting refineries strengthens Nigeria’s petrochemical, fertiliser, and allied industries, thereby creating broader industrial value chains capable of driving inclusive and sustainable growth.”
Production Growth Must Anchor the Upstream Agenda
On the upstream side, CPPE underscored the urgent need to ramp up crude oil and gas production through policies that attract fresh investments across both onshore and offshore assets. This, the Centre noted, is particularly imperative as the global energy transition accelerates.
“Nigeria must maximise the value of its hydrocarbon endowments while the opportunity still exists,” CPPE stated.
The Centre called on the NUPRC to prioritise production growth, investment facilitation, and improved security across producing assets, with a clear national objective of raising crude oil output to a minimum of two million barrels per day. Expanded investment in gas production, CPPE added, must also remain a central focus, given its strategic role in energy security, industrial development, and export earnings.
CPPE further stressed the importance of enforcing domestic crude supply obligations to local refineries, describing compliance as critical to the success of Nigeria’s refining renaissance.
“These strategic imperatives must define the direction of Nigeria’s new petroleum regulatory leadership if the sector is to effectively drive sustainable growth, industrialisation, and long-term economic resilience,” the Centre concluded.
