Nigeria lost 3.33 million barrels of crude to thieves in 2025, NUPRC report shows
- The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission says about 3.33 million barrels of crude were stolen in 2025.
- Nearly two-thirds of the reported losses fell in the fourth quarter, when 2.19 million barrels were recorded.
- The same report shows the commission's oil and gas revenue collections dropped to ₦10.42 trillion from ₦12.56 trillion.
Nigeria lost roughly 3.33 million barrels of crude oil to theft in 2025, and most of those reported losses came in the last three months of the year, according to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
The regulator's 2025 annual report, released on Thursday, put fourth-quarter theft at 2.19 million barrels. That is about 66 per cent of the year's total and close to five times the 440,434 barrels recorded between July and September.
The quarterly numbers were uneven. The first quarter recorded 896,471 barrels. The second quarter showed a negative figure of 200,400 barrels, which the commission said came from excess volumes found while reconciling its records.
For ordinary Nigerians, stolen crude is crude that never reaches the export terminal or a local refinery. It means less money for government budgets, fewer barrels available to sell abroad and less feedstock for refineries at home.
Revenue falls as security costs rise
The report also showed a drop in what the commission collected. Oil and gas revenue fell to ₦10.42 trillion in 2025 from ₦12.56 trillion in 2024, a decline of about 17 per cent. The commission said this was 63 per cent of its ₦16.54 trillion target.
Royalties, including Project Gazelle and NNPC receivables, brought in ₦8.97 trillion, down from ₦11.08 trillion the year before. Some smaller streams rose: gas flare penalties climbed to ₦611.42 billion from ₦391.26 billion, signature bonuses to ₦532.94 billion from ₦369.58 billion, and concession rentals to ₦38.19 billion from ₦23.71 billion.
Punch reported that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited put its energy security costs at ₦8.67 trillion in 2025, up from about ₦3.1 trillion in 2024. That money covers protecting oil and gas facilities, though not all of it goes to fighting theft alone.
The report also recorded 357 oil spills during the year, with sabotage behind 49.5 per cent of them.
Production and new projects
Despite the losses, Nigeria produced 541.08 million barrels of crude and blended condensate in 2025, plus 48.52 million barrels of unblended condensate. Output moved from 132.70 million barrels in the first quarter to 137.69 million in the second, then 137.45 million in the third and 133.23 million in the fourth.
The commission said it handled 75 field development plan applications during the year, approving 48, rejecting 10 and leaving 17 still under review. The approved plans are expected to develop about 1.75 billion barrels of oil reserves and 8.19 trillion cubic feet of gas, adding roughly 743,830 barrels of oil per day to capacity, with first oil expected between 2026 and 2030.
The theft figures sit alongside a brighter picture painted by businessman Tony Elumelu, who said in August 2026 that production losses had fallen from 97 per cent before President Bola Tinubu took office in 2023 to 2 per cent as of June 2026.
The 2026 budget assumes output of 1.84 million barrels per day at $64.85 a barrel. OPEC data cited in the reports put Nigeria's average at 1.505 million barrels per day since July 2026.
What happens next
The NUPRC is counting on the newly approved field plans to lift output from 2026 onward. Whether that happens depends partly on how well pipelines and terminals are protected, given the fourth-quarter spike in reported theft.
