President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved the clearance of long-standing debts owed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) to the Federation Account, effectively wiping off legacy balances accumulated up to December 31, 2024.
The decision followed a reconciliation of records between NNPC Ltd and the Federation and was captured in a document prepared by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), which was presented at the November meeting of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
According to the report, titled “Report of October 2025 Revenue Collection Presented at the Federation Account Allocation Committee Meeting Held on November 18, 2025,” the reconciliation exercise reviewed royalty and crude-lifting obligations owed by NNPC Ltd up to the end of 2024. Based on the outcome, the Presidency approved the removal of most of the outstanding balances from the government’s books.
The document disclosed that debts earlier reported to FAAC stood at $1.48 billion and ₦6.33 trillion, covering obligations from PSC, DSDP, RA, MCA liftings, as well as JV and PSC royalty receivables. Following presidential approval, $1.42 billion and ₦5.57 trillion of those amounts were officially “nilled off.”
The NUPRC explained that the clearance was based on the recommendations of the Stakeholder Alignment Committee, which was tasked with resolving disputed figures and aligning records between NNPC Ltd and the Federation up to December 31, 2024. It confirmed that the necessary accounting entries had already been made to reflect the approval.
However, the regulator stressed that the directive does not apply to obligations incurred after that date. Statutory liabilities accumulated between January and October 2025 remain outstanding and are still subject to recovery.
According to the report, post-2024 obligations stood at about $56.8 million and ₦1.02 trillion. Of that amount, $55 million was recovered during the period under review, leaving a balance of roughly $1.8 million and ₦1.02 trillion, which will continue to be tracked under FAAC oversight.
With this approval, the government has formally drawn a line under NNPC Ltd’s reconciled legacy debts, while keeping pressure on the national oil company to meet its ongoing obligations going forward.
