Project Gazelle forward-sale deal sees 90,000bpd crude deliveries as outstanding liability hits N3.8tn despite major drawdowns, raising concerns over Nigeria’s oil-backed debt burden.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has settled a portion of its $3bn forward-sale loan from the African Export-Import Bank using crude oil valued at N991bn in 2024, according to the company’s latest financial statement. The repayment is linked to Project Gazelle, a crude-forward agreement signed in 2023 to raise emergency funding.
On August 17, 2023, NNPC announced it had secured a $3.3bn emergency crude-backed loan from Afreximbank to help the Federal Government stabilise the foreign exchange market. At the time, the company said the loan would be repaid with future crude oil deliveries.
Under the arrangement, NNPC committed to supply 90,000 barrels per day from its Production Sharing Contract assets to back the financing. By December 31, 2023, the company had already drawn $2.25bn, with principal repayments scheduled to begin in June 2024.
The loan carried an interest structure of 3-month LIBOR + 6.5%, plus a 6% margin and a 0.5% liquidity premium.
According to NNPC’s 2024 financial report, the drawdown on the facility reached N4.9tn out of a total available N5.1tn, while crude worth N991bn was delivered between June and December 2024. The outstanding balance at year-end stood at N3.8tn.
The report noted:
“In December 2023, NNPC Limited entered into a forward sale agreement with Project Gazelle Funding Limited to supply 90,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Production Sharing Contract Assets for the settlement of a 5-year N2.7tn funding… As at 31st December 2024, a drawdown of N4.9tn has been achieved… A total value of crude oil worth N991bn has been lifted, with a balance of N3.8tn.”
However, the company did not disclose the identities of the 2024 crude offtakers or the exact volumes already delivered.
Project Gazelle has now become one of NNPC’s most significant oil-backed financing structures, part of a broader network of forward-sale and project-based loans used to generate government revenue, refinance old obligations, and fund critical state programmes amid fiscal pressures.
Earlier reporting showed that NNPC is carrying crude-backed loan liabilities estimated at N8.07tn, spread across several forward-sale deals. These include Eagle Export Funding (21,000 bpd), Project Yield (67,000 bpd), Project Leopard (35,000 bpd), and Project Gazelle (90,000 bpd), a combined pledge of 213,000 barrels per day. This figure excludes separate gas delivery commitments under the NLNG framework.
The volume represents a significant portion of Nigeria’s daily oil production and has raised concerns over long-term implications for federal revenue, export allocation, and operational flexibility.
Meanwhile, the Budget Implementation Report for Q4 2024 revealed that Nigeria’s gross profit from crude oil and gas sales dropped by N824.66bn, falling from N1.90tn in 2023 to N1.08tn in 2024, despite marginal improvements in crude output.
Oil and gas expert and CEO of AHA Strategies, Ademola Adigun, said the sharp decline in earnings is linked to opaque crude-for-cash agreements and undisclosed repayment terms that limit the volume of crude available for fresh revenue.
“Some of our crude is already tied up in loan agreements,” Adigun said. “The problem is that Nigeria doesn’t know the full details of these transactions because there’s little transparency around them.”
He added that several crude-backed deals, including Project Gazelle, were executed without adequate public disclosure or parliamentary oversight. Adigun urged the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) to strengthen its audits to determine how much crude is being channelled toward debt settlements and swap arrangements.
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