Nigeria now keeps 61% of oil industry spending at home
Former President Jonathan says China's model inspired Nigeria's local content law as NCDMB highlights gains since 2010.
When Nigeria passed its Local Content Act in 2010, less than five percent of activities in the country’s gas and oil industry were handled by Nigerian companies. Sixteen years later, that figure has climbed to 61 percent, marking one of the biggest structural shifts in the country’s energy sector.
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) says the increase has helped retain more industry spending within Nigeria, strengthened indigenous businesses and created a growing pipeline of skilled professionals for the oil and gas industry.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan, who signed the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act into law in April 2010, said the legislation was inspired by a visit to China years earlier, where he observed that almost every product and service used by the country’s oil industry was sourced locally.
Speaking at the SweetCrude Dialogue 2026 in Yenagoa, Jonathan recalled wondering why Nigeria, despite discovering crude oil around the same period as China, remained heavily dependent on foreign expertise, imported equipment and overseas technology.
That experience, he said, convinced him that Nigeria needed a legal framework to ensure its oil wealth created businesses, jobs and technical capacity at home rather than exporting much of its economic value abroad.
His remarks highlight one of the biggest questions surrounding Nigeria’s oil industry over the past seven decades: how much value has actually remained in the country?
For decades, international oil companies dominated exploration, engineering, fabrication, procurement and specialised technical services. Nigerian firms often participated only at the margins, while billions of dollars flowed overseas through imported equipment, expatriate labour and foreign contractors.
The Local Content Act was designed to change that by giving Nigerian companies greater participation across the industry’s value chain and requiring operators to prioritise local goods, services and skilled workers where capacity exists.
According to NCDMB Executive Secretary Felix Omatsola Ogbe, represented by Director of Monitoring and Evaluation Esueme Dan Kikile, the policy has significantly expanded indigenous participation, with Nigerian content rising from below five percent in 2010 to 61 percent in 2026.
The Board said the gains extend beyond ownership. Major oil and gas projects are now required to invest in training Nigerian engineers, geologists, technicians and seafarers through dedicated Human Capacity Development programmes, helping to reduce the industry’s long-standing skills gap.
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NCDMB also pointed to investments intended to deepen industrialisation rather than simply regulate compliance. These include the Nigerian Oil and Gas Parks Scheme in Bayelsa and Cross River States, gas processing infrastructure in Bayelsa, the Oloibiri Museum and Research Centre, the Brass Shipyard project and support for the proposed NLNG fertiliser project.
The objective is to ensure that oil-producing communities become centres of manufacturing, engineering services and industrial activity instead of remaining largely dependent on crude oil extraction alone.
The business significance is substantial. Every percentage increase in local content means more contracts awarded to Nigerian companies, more engineering work executed domestically and more money circulating within the local economy instead of leaving the country through imports and Foreign Service providers.
However, challenges remain. While local participation has expanded considerably, many high-end engineering services, specialised equipment and advanced technologies are still sourced internationally because domestic capacity remains limited in several areas.
Industry analysts have also argued that the next phase of local content should focus less on meeting participation targets and more on building globally competitive Nigerian companies capable of exporting technical expertise across Africa.
Jonathan said conversations around the future of the industry should also consider host communities and the broader impact of the Petroleum Industry Act, while stakeholders at the event stressed that local content must continue evolving from policy into sustainable industrial development.
As Nigeria pushes to attract fresh investment into oil and gas, the country’s local content programme is increasingly being judged not only by compliance figures but by whether it can build businesses, create skilled jobs and ensure more of the industry’s wealth remains within the Nigerian economy.
