Nigeria may face a fresh crisis in its oil and gas industry if renewed investment outpaces the development of skilled professionals needed to execute increasingly complex upstream projects, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has warned.
The Commission Chief Executive, Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, said years of underinvestment had depleted the country’s pool of geoscientists, petroleum engineers and other critical technical professionals.
Eyesan spoke during the “Setting the Agenda: Local Content & Human Capital under PIA 2021 & NOGICD” panel at the Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria Human Capacity Development Conference and Expo at the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, Delta State.
She disclosed that annual investment in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry plunged from about $24bn in 2014 to roughly $2bn in 2023, representing a decline of more than 90 per cent.
According to her, the investment collapse did not only slow exploration and capital spending but also triggered a massive erosion of human capital.
Eyesan said geoscientists were among the first professionals to leave the industry as companies began cutting budgets, while petroleum engineers were subsequently affected as the downturn persisted.
Some, she said, were made redundant, while others became increasingly restricted to maintenance roles as operators moved from expansion to survival.
But with investment now picking up, the NUPRC boss said Nigeria must urgently rebuild its technical workforce before the skills shortage becomes a major obstacle to project execution.
The challenge, she noted, has become more pressing with the Federal Government’s renewed push to attract investment into the upstream sector.
Eyesan specifically referenced President Bola Tinubu’s Deep Offshore Oil and Gas Projects Incentives (Tax Remission) Order, 2026, signed on August 6, which provides production tax credits for qualifying deep offshore projects.
She said the renewed investment expected from such incentives would require a new generation of highly specialised Nigerian professionals.
The NUPRC chief warned against continuing to train oil and gas workers with curricula designed for an earlier generation of petroleum operations.
She identified digitalised operations, advanced geoscience, digital twins and digital drilling technologies as some of the skills that should now form the core of Nigeria’s workforce development strategy.
According to her, modern upstream projects increasingly depend on the ability of professionals to integrate subsurface data, real-time field information, automation, modelling and advanced analytics into operational and investment decisions.
“Training curricula need to evolve,” Eyesan said, stressing that Nigeria was still behind where it needed to be in developing the competencies required by a rapidly changing industry.
She urged regulators, operators, training institutions and universities to work together to build a workforce capable of powering the next phase of oil and gas development.
Eyesan said Nigeria must stop waiting for vacancies to emerge before training workers, urging stakeholders to anticipate the skills the industry would require several years ahead.
She also called for stronger links between technical and commercial training.
According to her, technical professionals must understand the commercial consequences of their decisions, while commercial professionals need adequate technical knowledge to operate effectively in increasingly complex energy projects.
Eyesan further linked human capital development to Nigeria’s competitiveness in attracting oil and gas investment.
Using the analogy that capital behaves like water and flows towards areas of least resistance, she said Nigeria’s workforce must become more commercially oriented if the country is to capture greater value from the next wave of investment.
The NUPRC boss said the country’s local content drive could not succeed through regulation alone without the skilled manpower required to deliver increasingly sophisticated projects.
She therefore called for a coordinated talent pipeline that would anticipate changes in upstream technology, project development, energy markets and operational practices.
Eyesan said the current revival in investment represented an opportunity for Nigeria to rebuild the workforce lost during years of industry contraction and prepare professionals for the demands of the country’s next oil and gas investment cycle.
