NNPC has announced that the nationwide strike embarked upon by PENGASSAN workers cost Nigeria over 200,000 barrels per day of crude oil. The commission recently revealed that the industrial action also affected gas production and electricity generation.
Speaking after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC Ltd, Bayo Ojulari, said that at an average price of $66 per barrel, Nigeria lost about $39.6 million (N57.4 billion) worth of crude oil during the 3-day strike.
“I think it was unfortunate that the Dangote and PENGASSAN issue led to strike and whenever there is strike and critical staff manning critical facilities are not available and optimum production is almost impossible. In this particular case, we actually lost significant production of over 200,000 bpd that was deferred.
We also have gas production that was deferred, we also have power generation that was impacted by about 1.2 megawatts of power that was affected by that strike,” he said.
Ojulari expressed happiness that the crisis had been resolved through the quick intervention of the federal government via the Federal Ministry of Labour and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA).
He stated that while production is back to the status quo since the strike was suspended, it’ll take some time to stop playing catch up.
“I’m very pleased that the federal government through the leadership of the Minister of Labour and full support of the National Security Adviser was able to put together everyone into a dialogue and brought everybody to the table and now there has been a communiqué that has been agreed on the way forward.
We are all very hopeful that everyone will abide by the communique, since then we have been able to return production back to status quo, there has been one or two areas that we are still trying to catch up with. Overall, we have gradually gone back to restore lost production and the deferment that we have as of today,” Ojulari continued.
He further noted that Nigeria has been able to increase crude oil production since last month, stressing that 1.68 million barrels per day were produced in September 2025, while 7 billion cubic feet of gas were also produced per day during the same period.
Ojulari concluded by saying that he expects normalcy to return now that the pending issues have been resolved.
“We are making good progress. As you know, we recorded 1.68mbpd of oil production last month which was very good. That was the first in about five years. In terms of milestones, we also recorded the highest gas production above 7 Billion Cubic Feet per day which is also the highest in recent times.
What we are also expecting is that with some Turnaround Maintenance we have done in August and September and all of those are meant to come back this month, we are hoping that by the end of the year we should at least be clocking 1.8mbpd.
The increase you saw was relatively artificial because for the period of the strike, movement and loading were delayed for about two to three days and because of that you see that impact and as things return to normal it takes sometimes for distribution to fully return and you see with that delay some of the people that have existing resources in reserves had to put up the price.
My expectation is that now that things are back to normal prices it should return to what they were before the strike.
It is quite an important opportunity to update the president on the progress in NNPC particularly in terms of production performance, in terms of progress we are making in terms of attracting investment.
As you recall, the President gave us a clear mandate which is to grow production to at least 2 million bpd by 2027 and up to 3 million bpd by 2030 as well as grow gas production as well. So, how are we progressing this year and how are we preparing for next year in terms of ensuring we deliver this growth? So, that was one of my updates to the President,” he added.
