The Federal Government said it has put machinery in motion to increase Nigeria’s crude oil production by 30 per cent to 2.8 million barrels (mb) of crude oil per day in the next couple of days. Nigeria currently produces about 2.2 million barrels of crude oil per day, while the benchmark for the 2016 budget is still 2.2 million barrels per day. Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, had put the target for 2016 at 2.4 million per day.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the African Petroleum Congress and Exhibition (CAPE VI), organized by African Petroleum Producers Association (AAPPA) in Abuja, Buhari, who was represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, stated that to attain the new target, the country is focusing on reducing costs and encourage efficiencies in oil exploration.
Buhari said that increasing Nigeria’s crude oil production is part of a number of strategies aimed at repositioning the Nigerian oil industry, which led to the development of a number of initiatives. The initiatives, he said, included the unbundling of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into lean, efficient and profitable components that will operate as a business venture and deploy existing manpower to areas of competences without attendant job losses.
He further stated that the government is committed to the development of stronger policies on local content so as to reduce the high cost of production of machine components, services and capital flight in the industry, while it also plans to expand oil and gas exploration into new fields that have discoveries in commercial quantities, such as the North east (Lake Chad Basin) and Coastal States (Lagos).
He also maintained that repositioning the oil industry entails the reduction of gas flaring through Joint Venture Contracts that will expand infrastructure and deploy Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for domestic and industrial uses.
Buhari also said that the country is committed to ending gas flaring by 2020and it plans to sign the United Nations Agreement of ‘Zero Routine Flaring by 2030’.
He said, “In Nigeria, gas flaring amounts to about 23 billion cubic meters per annum; in over 100 flare sites constituting over 13% of global gas flaring.
“Nigeria is a member of the World Bank Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GCFR) Partnership and with the support of our legislature; we will sign the United Nations Agreement of ‘Zero Routine Flaring by 2030’ although our national target is 2020.”
Buhari further maintained that the development of a robust gas infrastructure must be jointly addressed if Africa must meet her future energy needs.
He called on APPA member countries to enter into profitable partnerships in natural gas business with Nigeria, going by the country’s huge gas deposit and recent investments in gas projects.
