Nigerian Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele has called for the state oil company (NNPCL) and the country's sole liquefied natural gas exporter (NLNG) to be listed on the Nigerian Exchange as the government seeks to deepen the country’s capital market and broaden public ownership of major national assets.
Oyedele, who is also Coordinating Minister of the Economy, made the proposal to at the National Capital Market Conference in Abuja on October 19, where the government launched its Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan 2.0 for 2026–2036.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), launching the plan alongside Vice President Kashim Shettima, wants to increase the size of Nigeria’s broader capital market from about NGN250 trillion ($187.5bn) to NGN750 trillion by 2036. Oyedele has argued for a larger target of at least $1 trillion within the decade.
Oyedele also proposed increasing the number of listed companies from 146 to 250, expanding the retail investor base from about 6mn to 20mn and raising equity market capitalisation from around 33% to at least 60% of gross domestic product (GDP).
Listing NNPCL and NLNG could give that effort a substantial boost. Both are among Nigeria’s most important energy companies, and even relatively small public offerings could rank among the largest transactions in the country’s stock-market history.
NNPCL could transform the scale of the market
Oyedele illustrated NNPCL’s potential size by comparing it with Saudi Aramco. If the Nigerian company were valued at 10% of what he put at Aramco’s $1.6 trillion market capitalisation, he said, NNPCL would be worth about $160bn.
At the exchange rate implied by the minister’s comparison, that would be roughly NGN213 trillion, against an estimated NGN160 trillion in equity market capitalisation on the Nigerian Exchange. The latter measures listed equities rather than the broader capital market covered by the SEC’s NGN250 trillion figure. The comparison is illustrative, rather than a valuation using market data from the same date.
A listing at that valuation could add approximately $160bn to the exchange’s aggregate equity market capitalisation if the entire company were admitted to trading, even if only a small stake were offered to investors. A 10% sale would represent $16bn in shares but would raise new capital for NNPCL only if the company issued new equity. Proceeds from a sale of existing shares would go to the selling shareholder.
The valuation itself remains hypothetical. Aramco is much larger and more profitable, with lower production costs and a different asset base.
Aramco’s market capitalisation is about $1.65 trillion. The Saudi company reported adjusted net income of $104.7bn for 2025 and hydrocarbon production of 12.9mn barrels of oil equivalent per day.
NNPCL reported profit after tax of NGN7.2 trillion for 2025 on revenue of NGN34.5 trillion and declared an NGN5.8 trillion dividend. It also reported that crude oil and condensate production across Nigeria averaged 1.77mn barrels per day (bpd), a national production figure rather than output attributable solely to NNPCL.
NNPCL’s businesses span oil and gas production, pipelines, trading, retail and refining, with differing levels of profitability and performance.
A credible valuation would depend on the quality of those businesses, their financial obligations and the confidence investors place in the company’s accounts, management and investment plans. Oyedele’s $160bn figure is best understood as an illustration of NNPCL’s potential scale relative to Nigeria’s existing stock market.
Listing would put NNPCL under closer scrutiny
The idea of floating NNPCL has been discussed since the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021 transformed the former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation into a commercial company.
Group Chief Executive Bayo Ojulari said on September 29 that no IPO date had been fixed and that shareholders would make the final decision.
He told Bloomberg on October 13 that NNPCL had completed an assessment of its readiness for an IPO and was addressing weaknesses identified by advisers, particularly in financial reporting and corporate governance. The assessment represents preparatory work, not shareholder approval or the launch of a transaction.
NNPCL has long faced questions over transparency, its relationship with the government and the performance of some of its assets. Its state-owned refineries have undergone repeated rehabilitation programmes without achieving sustained commercial operations. NNPCL has since been exploring technical equity partnerships for the refineries.
The company has also faced scrutiny over financial flows to the government. In 2025, the World Bank called for the full transfer of gains associated with petrol-subsidy reform to the federation, while Nigerian anti-corruption authorities pursued investigations involving former NNPCL officials. IntelliNews reported on pressure for greater transparency in NNPCL’s financial relationship with the government.
A public listing would not resolve those issues by itself, but it would require more regular disclosure and subject NNPCL to greater scrutiny from investors, analysts and minority shareholders.
For a company that has historically combined commercial operations with government policy objectives, those changes could prove as important as the amount raised.
NLNG offers a different investment case
NLNG operates six liquefaction trains on Bonny Island with nameplate LNG production capacity of 22mn tonnes per year. Its 8mn-tonne-per-year Train 7 expansion is designed to increase capacity by 35% to about 30mn tonnes annually. Chief Executive Adeleye Falade has said the project is more than 90% complete.
NLNG also has a long record of generating cash for its shareholders. The company says it has paid $47.2bn in dividends to its shareholders since it began operations.
NNPCL holds 49% of NLNG, while Shell (LSE: SHEL; NYSE: SHEL) holds 25.6%, TotalEnergies (EPA: TTE; NYSE: TTE) 15% and Eni (BIT: ENI; NYSE: E) 10.4%.
Any listing would require the necessary shareholder approvals, agreement on whether existing investors would sell shares or NLNG would issue new equity, and compliance with applicable regulatory and exchange requirements. No IPO process, timetable or offering size has been announced.
For investors, the appeal would lie in gaining direct exposure to an established LNG exporter, although its performance remains sensitive to domestic gas supply.
There are also operational risks. IntelliNews reported in September that NLNG’s existing trains were running at around 82–83% utilisation, with feedgas availability remaining a constraint. The report also said the company remained under force majeure, originally declared in 2022, and was targeting Train 7 start-up by the end of 2027. Those figures and timelines reflect reporting available at the time rather than a newly confirmed October operating update.
A flotation would therefore give investors access to one of Nigeria’s largest industrial assets but also expose them directly to the country’s gas-supply bottlenecks and the execution risks surrounding its expansion programme.
Dangote tests investor appetite — and market limits
Nigeria’s ongoing $1.6bn Dangote Petroleum Refinery IPO provides a test of demand for large domestic share offerings.
The transaction has been marketed heavily to retail investors, with a minimum application of 10 shares. Its announced size would make it one of Africa’s largest share sales, although final proceeds and subscription levels have not been established.
Interest in the offer has placed pressure on investment infrastructure. IntelliNews reported that traffic on investment platform Bamboo rose to about 10 times normal levels within 30 minutes of the offer opening, causing outages and affecting third-party providers.
Domestic investors accounted for 89.8% of transaction value on the Nigerian Exchange during the first eight months of 2026, indicating the importance of local investors in secondary-market trading. Institutions nevertheless accounted for about 62% of domestic trading over the period, against 38% for retail investors. Neither measure establishes how much capital retail investors are willing or able to commit to new offerings.
The Dangote offer has also exposed practical constraints on cross-border participation. Because the IPO is registered in Nigeria, investors elsewhere have depended on country-by-country arrangements. Kenya approved a programme of global depositary receipts worth about $300mn, Uganda limited local marketing to professional and high-net-worth investors and Ethiopia restricted participation to qualified investors.
Those problems would become more important if NNPCL or NLNG sought to attract investors across Africa or internationally.
IntelliNews reported that Dangote was targeting as many as 10mn retail investors. Subscriptions have been extended until October 27. Platform traffic and expressions of interest indicate investor attention, but completed subscriptions, final proceeds and subsequent trading liquidity will provide a more reliable measure of the market’s capacity to absorb large offerings.
Bigger listings alone will not create a deeper market
The government’s capital-market plan extends beyond NNPCL and NLNG to increasing corporate bond issuance, expanding pension assets and attracting millions more retail investors.
Large listings could increase the headline size of the Nigerian market and give local investors access to companies that have so far remained outside the exchange. But the amount of new financing generated would depend on the structure of each offering, while sustained market depth would require active trading, reliable disclosure and a broad investor base.
NNPCL would be the more consequential test. Management has begun preparing for a possible IPO, but the company’s scale, governance requirements and relationship with the state make execution particularly complex.
NLNG remains further from a potential listing, with no announced flotation preparations or shareholder agreement to proceed. Its established LNG business could nevertheless make it a significant addition if its owners eventually approved a transaction.
For investors, the distinction is between increasing the value of companies quoted on the exchange and creating a market capable of financing investment through new equity issuance and sustained secondary trading. Bringing NNPCL and NLNG to market could achieve the former relatively quickly; achieving the latter would depend on the structure, governance and liquidity of any eventual offerings.