President Bola Tinubu has set Nigeria’s oil industry a clear national ambition: three million barrels of crude per day by 2030. When Bashir Ojulari assumed office as Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Limited in April 2025, he placed his mandate firmly behind that target, calling for “courage, professionalism, and a relentless drive for excellence” to deliver it.
I have spent more than 25 years in Nigeria’s oil and gas service sector, and if those years have taught me one enduring lesson, that lesson is this: the distance between a bold target and a delivered outcome is rarely about intention.
Almost always, the difference lies in preparation.
I have seen what happens when ambition runs ahead of structure, and I have seen what becomes possible when the two move together.
Nigeria’s 2030 target will be decided by which of those two stories we choose to write.
The stakes reach well beyond the industry. Crude oil remains central to Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings and government revenue, and production volumes shape everything from the strength of the naira to the credibility of the national budget.
A target of this scale is, therefore, a national delivery programme, and how it is pursued will determine whether it strengthens the industry and the economy or strains both.
In recent weeks, I have been in conversations with operators, regulators, and service providers across the industry. The energy around the target is optimistic, and rightly so. But a principle I have worked by throughout my career keeps returning to me: define the project before you set the goal.
Understand the scope, resources, timelines, stakeholders, and dependencies before the pressure builds. A goal without that foundation is very difficult to deliver safely and sustainably.
Commitments are already being made across the value chain by international oil companies, independents, and marginal field producers, as they should be when a national target has been set. What I would encourage at every level is honesty about capacity.
Each operator should assess what it can realistically deliver, confirm its dependencies, and align early with the service providers and suppliers who will support execution.
In this industry, timelines are deeply connected. When one shifts, the impact rarely stays with one company. It moves to the next operator, the service provider, the fabrication yard, and the supplier. Sometimes it moves through the entire execution chain.
For those of us on the service side, the consequences are practical. We want to mobilise behind this target, but the materials, people, and fabrication timelines that make mobilisation possible all require proper planning.
When those conversations start late, pressure compresses through the chain: the operator is pressed to deliver production, the service provider is pressed to respond, the supplier is pressed to source, and the fabrication team is pressed to shorten timelines that were already tight.
When pressure rises high enough, and the culture and systems around it are not strong enough to hold the line, corners get cut. Some of the most serious safety failures in our industry began exactly there, with timelines that did not account for what delivery actually requires.
NNPC’s leadership has acknowledged the risk directly. Ojulari has noted that “asset integrity, cost discipline, structured field development, and stronger partnerships have historically been the weak points in the sector”.
From where I sit on the service side, I would add this: weak points do not fix themselves under pressure. They require deliberate planning before the pressure arrives.
Three million barrels per day by 2030 is a serious delivery programme, and it deserves to be managed as one: with the right stakeholders engaged early, resources confirmed before commitments harden, and timelines built around the realities of execution across the entire value chain. Regulators have a role in insisting that readiness accompanies ambition.
Operators have a role in planning honestly. And service providers have a role in speaking up now, while the plans are still being written, rather than later, when the pressure has already arrived.
Nigeria has the ambition and the capability. The task before us is to build a structure strong enough to carry both. If we do that work now, 2030 will be remembered as the year the industry delivered and delivered safely.
SOURCE: Businessday