Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest oil producers and a key OPEC member, but the country has long struggled with a gap between its official production quota and actual output. In 2026, understanding Nigeria’s oil production dynamics is important for anyone tracking the global supply balance.

Nigeria’s Production Challenges

Nigeria’s oil industry has been plagued by infrastructure challenges, pipeline vandalism, oil theft and under-investment for many years. Actual production has frequently fallen below the country’s OPEC official data, not because of deliberate restraint but because of operational difficulties that limit the industry’s ability to sustain output.

The country’s onshore and shallow-water oil fields — where much of the production theft and vandalism occurs — have seen a significant decline in investment, with major international oil companies divesting their Nigerian onshore assets in recent years. This has shifted production increasingly to the more stable and harder-to-vandalise deepwater sector.

The Deepwater Offset

Nigeria’s deepwater oil sector, operated primarily by international majors including Shell, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, has performed better than the onshore sector. New deepwater projects coming online through 2025 and 2026 are providing a meaningful offset to onshore production decline, helping to stabilise total national output.

OPEC Quota Position

Nigeria has been allocated an OPEC+ production quota broadly in line with its actual production capacity, unlike some members whose quotas significantly exceed what they can realistically produce. For 2026, Nigeria’s quota is expected to remain in the 1.5–1.6 mb/d range, with actual production tracking close to or slightly below this level depending on infrastructure reliability.