Nigeria Renews Push to List NNPC and NLNG, but Dates and Stakes Remain Unclear

A Sharper Push from the Finance Minister

NGN Market reported on Tuesday that the new master plan names NNPC Limited and Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) as potential listings. Reporting of the finance minister's remarks since then shows a harder push than that first account suggested. Speaking at the National Capital Market Conference in Abuja on Monday, October 19, Oyedele said: "NNPC, NLNG, those choice assets of government have to be listed because, by doing that, I believe that we will actually get a win-win outcome."

He also committed the government to preparing NNPC directly. Oyedele promised that the Federal Government would do everything necessary and take the lead in cleaning up NNPC ahead of its listing, asking: "If we clean up the NNPC and list the NNPC, do you know that NNPC is worth more than the entire capital market value that we have today in Nigeria?" He pointed to Saudi Aramco, valued at $1.6 trillion, and suggested NNPC could be worth 10% of that, or $160 billion. For context, the whole NGX equity market is currently worth about ₦159 trillion. Oyedele said listing the two companies would improve transparency, let Nigerians share in the wealth from national assets, and deepen the capital market.

NNPC: Getting Ready, on No Fixed Date

NNPC became a commercial company under the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021, which provides for its shares to be listed. The company has been working towards that for years, but the timetable keeps moving. A roadmap outlined in July 2025 pointed to a listing by 2028. On September 29, 2026, after the company's annual general meeting, Group Chief Executive Officer Bayo Ojulari said no date had been fixed: "We don't have a date, but we are working hard to make sure we are ready as soon as we can. The decision to take IPO is not ours. It's the shareholders that will take ultimately that decision."

On October 13, Ojulari told Bloomberg that NNPC had completed a baseline assessment of its readiness and was fixing gaps in its financial reporting and governance identified by its advisers, citing the Dangote Refinery share offer as a successful precedent. Its earnings give investors plenty to weigh in the meantime. Audited profit after tax rose 33% to ₦7.2 trillion in 2025, on revenue of ₦34.5 trillion. But profit in the first half of 2026 fell 35.4% to ₦2.28 trillion, from ₦3.53 trillion a year earlier, according to figures reported by Nairametrics.

NLNG Is the Harder of the Two

NLNG, the Bonny Island gas exporter, is not wholly government-owned. NNPC holds 49%, while Shell Gas holds 25.6%, TotalEnergies 15% and Eni 10.4%. That means Abuja cannot decide a listing on its own: any offer would need the agreement of the foreign shareholders, and none has been publicly announced. The government also has to decide how much of either company it would sell, and at what value, before investors can judge the offers.

The Dangote Template, and What to Watch

Officials keep pointing to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery offer as the model: 4.1 billion shares at ₦525 each, aiming to raise about ₦2.15 trillion, with applications closing on October 27. If NNPC and NLNG follow it to market, they would transform the size of the NGX, which is central to the master plan's ₦750 trillion ambition. For now, though, the listings remain intentions. The things that would make them real are a formal NNPC timetable and stake size, a public signal from NLNG's foreign shareholders, and clean-up steps at NNPC that produce the standard of financial disclosure a listed company must maintain.