Nigeria Approves a $4.5 Billion Oil-Backed Refinancing, Pledging 78,750 Barrels a Day

Nigeria's National Economic Council has approved a $4.5 billion refinancing of a crude-backed borrowing facility held by NNPC Limited, the state oil company. The transaction, called Project Gazelle 2, retires roughly $1.5 billion still outstanding on a $3.3 billion pre-export finance facility arranged in 2023 and provides about $3 billion in additional liquidity, CNBC Africa reported. Nigeria's Vanguard and AllAfrica carried the council's approval.

The security is physical oil. The facility is repaid from 78,750 barrels a day of production pledged by NNPC, a volume that officials said is 12.5 percent lower than the barrels committed under the earlier deal. Lenders described the terms as more favourable than the 2023 arrangement. Nigeria is therefore pledging fewer barrels for a larger sum, which reflects both improved credit conditions and the government's negotiating position.

The purpose is to support foreign reserves and fund infrastructure spending while the naira remains under pressure. A pre-export facility is not a loan against the sovereign's general credit. It is a claim on a defined stream of barrels, and that claim ranks ahead of ordinary budget spending. Every barrel pledged is a barrel whose proceeds are unavailable to the treasury regardless of what happens to the fiscal position.

That structure is why the terms matter more than the headline. Nigeria is converting future production into present cash at a time when the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is pushing crude prices lower. If Brent stays near the current level of about $79 a barrel, the pledged volume more than covers the obligation. If prices fall materially further, the same pledged volume covers a smaller share, and the pressure moves to the barrels the treasury still controls.