diff --git a/doc/release/upcoming_changes/16730.improvement.rst b/doc/release/upcoming_changes/16730.improvement.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..44ec03cafbea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/release/upcoming_changes/16730.improvement.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+Use f90 compiler specified in command line args
+--------------------------------------------------------
+
+The compiler command selection for Fortran Portland Group Compiler is changed in `numpy.distutils.fcompiler`.
+This only affects the linking command.
+This forces the use of the executable provided by the command line option (if provided)
+instead of the pgfortran executable.
+If no executable is provided to the command line option it defaults to the pgf90 executable,
+wich is an alias for pgfortran according to the PGI documentation.
diff --git a/numpy/distutils/fcompiler/pg.py b/numpy/distutils/fcompiler/pg.py
index eb628cb63d8e..72442c4fec61 100644
--- a/numpy/distutils/fcompiler/pg.py
+++ b/numpy/distutils/fcompiler/pg.py
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ class PGroupFCompiler(FCompiler):
             'compiler_f77': ["pgfortran"],
             'compiler_fix': ["pgfortran", "-Mfixed"],
             'compiler_f90': ["pgfortran"],
-            'linker_so': ["pgfortran"],
+            'linker_so': ["<F90>"],
             'archiver': ["ar", "-cr"],
             'ranlib': ["ranlib"]
         }