NAPE President, Ajayi, calls for intensified exploration to boost Nigeria’s oil reserves – EnviroNews

– Advertisement –

Nigeria must urgently ramp up exploration in frontier and mature basins to replace fast-depleting reserves and secure its production future, President of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists [NAPE], Mrs. Cecilia Ajayi, has warned

Ajayi raised the alarm while speaking at a high level strategic panel session at the 2026 NAEC Energy Conference, organized by the Association of Energy Correspondents of Nigeria (NAEC) in Lagos with the theme “From Diversification to Value: Scaling Nigeria’s Energy Ecosystem for Growth”.

The conference, themed “Access to Assets: Empowering Players and Driving Growth,” focused on dismantling barriers to asset access across the oil, gas, power and mining sectors.

She said Nigeria’s reserves decline – from about 39 billion barrels to 37 billion barrels – makes sustained exploration non-negotiable if the country must remain competitive.

“We continue to advocate for more exploration so that as we are depleting the current reserves, we are replacing,” Ajayi said

The NAPE President stressed that exploration must not be limited to legacy assets, but must aggressively extend to frontier basins where huge potential remains untapped.”The frontier environment needs to be explored,” she said, urging regulators to provide fiscal and regulatory incentives that de-risk frontier exploration.

Ajayi called for a rethink of Nigeria’s frontier licensing model, suggesting that investors should be allowed to undertake limited technical work to de-risk assets before making full financial commitments, including payment of signature bonuses.

She cited Ghana’s model, where frontier investors are permitted to carry out technical evaluation before paying signature bonuses, as a framework Nigeria should adopt to attract exploration dollars.

Beyond frontier basins, Ajayi said technology offers a lifeline for mature fields, enabling operators to drill deeper, redevelop fields and recover bypassed oil that was previously uneconomic.”So, we should please go ahead, drill deeper, redevelop, bypass oil. 

Let’s take advantage of technology to do what needs to be done,” she urged.

Her call reinforces industry concerns that, without aggressive exploration and adoption of modern technology, Nigeria risks further reserve erosion and production decline at a time when asset access is central to empowering indigenous players and driving growth.

Other panelists included Mr. Austin Avuru, Executive Chairman & Founder, AA Holdings Ltd,), Mr. Wole Ogunsanya, Chairman of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN), Mrs. Alero Balogun, General Manager, Corporate Communications, Oando Plc, and Chike Nwosu, Group Chief Executive officer, HSI Energies Ltd, who moderated the session.