The Central Bank of Nigeria has officially abolished the cash pooling requirement for international oil companies, granting these multinational firms full and unrestricted access to their export proceeds.
In a circular issued on Wednesday and signed by Musa Nakorji, the director of the trade and exchange department, the financial regulator announced that the new policy takes immediate effect.
The directive explicitly supersedes earlier guidelines introduced in early 2024. Those prior rules mandated banks to pool 50 percent of repatriated export proceeds on behalf of international oil companies, while the remaining balance was systematically withheld for 90 days before it could be repatriated.
Under the newly revised framework, oil firms are now permitted to access and repatriate the entirety of their funds without delay.
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“IOCs are hereby granted unfettered access to their repatriated export proceeds. The IOCs may repatriate 100 percent of their export proceeds through the ADBs,” the official circular stated.
The apex bank explained that this pivotal decision is aimed at further liberalizing the foreign exchange market in strict alignment with current economic realities.
As part of its broader efforts to deepen the Nigerian foreign exchange market and enhance overall transactional efficiency, the CBN has instructed all authorized dealer banks to ensure meticulous documentation of such transactions and to submit comprehensive monthly reports to its trade and exchange department.
The original restrictions were implemented on February 14, 2024, when the Central Bank placed strict limits on the transfer of crude export proceeds by oil companies to offshore parent accounts.
At the time, the regulator cited the profound impact such massive transfers had on domestic foreign exchange liquidity.
Two months following that initial restriction, the regulator slightly eased the rules by allowing the companies to sell their 50 percent balance in the Nigeria Foreign Exchange Market.
With Wednesday’s announcement, the new directive effectively overrides all previous circulars relating to the cash pooling system, marking a significant shift in the country’s financial approach to the oil sector
