The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, says it has achieved stability and sustenance of crude oil production at above two million barrels per day in the last two years.
Maikanti Baru, Group Managing Director, GMD, NNPC gave the details recently while highlighting the achievements of the corporation in the upstream sector of the oil industry, two years after he was appointed as chief executive of the NNPC.
“Recall that when we took over, production was less than 1.5 million barrels. We, however, closed the year 2016 at average of 1.8 million per day while in 2017, it averaged 1.88 million per day,” he said.
Baru also revealed that on the 28 of June, 2017 the NNPC achieved a peak production of 2.3 million barrels of oil and condensate per day.
He attributed the feat to collaboration with oil producing communities and security agencies.
Prevention and speedy repairs of pipelines and other oil facilities as well as implementation of new financing framework also accounted for the rise in production.
According to the GMD, other accomplishments of the NNPC within his first two years in office included cut in operating costs from $27/barrel to $22/barrel.
This was achieved through a number of measures ranging from renegotiation of contracts to enhancement of efficiency.
There was also fulfilment of cash call arrear payment of $1 billion out of $5 billion to Joint Venture partners on schedule.
This, Baru explained, boosted investors’ confidence in the Nigeria market with all the major oil companies proposing new development projects.
It also led to the introduction of new project financing models which have attracted investments worth about $3 billion collectively for the Schlumberger funded NNPC/first E&P JV project, the NNPC/CNL JV of Project Cheetah and the NNPC/SPDC JV Project Santolina.
Aside from boosting oil production, these projects are also expected to increase revenue to the federation account.
Within the two years, Baru has also facilitated restoration of the ownership of Oil Mining Lease, OML 13 to the NNPC exploration and production subsidiary, the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, growing it from a marginal producer of 15, 000bpd in 2016 to a medium size producer of about 240, 000bpd production.
In the midstream sector, efforts by the corporation to harness the huge gas resources of the country has resulted in increased exploration, leading to growth of the country’s proven gas reserve by 7 trillion cubic feet, tcf.
It rose from 192 tcf in 2015 to 199 in 2016.
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According to the NNPC, domestic gas supply also rose from 950 million standard cubic feet per day, mscfd, in 2016 to 1,500 mscfd in 2018.
About half of this product is being supplied to thermal stations across the country for electricity generation.
This has also resulted in improved power supply to the level of 5,222mw as at December 2017.
Baru further disclosed that in the last two years, NNPC has become the largest single supplier of domestic gas in the country with the restoration of existing gas plants in the country and completion of existing projects.
In the downstream sector, the GMD said that despite challenges of vandalism, sabotage and aging infrastructure, the corporation had brought back on stream, critical infrastructure for smooth and cost effective distribution of petroleum products across the country.
