Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari, has announced that Nigeria’s oil production volume is approaching 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd).
Gatekeepers News reports that this revelation came during a stakeholders’ engagement between the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) and the NNPC in Lagos over the weekend.
According to Kyari, Nigeria has the potential to produce two million barrels per day, but this goal is being hindered by oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta region. “The good news is that substantial work is being done by the government to address this issue, and I’m confident that we will see significant improvements soon,” he said.
Kyari attributed the increase in oil production during the COVID-19 pandemic to the lockdown, which forced oil thieves and pipeline vandals to cease their illegal activities. “Our production shot up to 2.2 million bpd on April 17, 2020, without any new drilling or investment,” he noted.
To increase oil production, Kyari emphasized the need to tackle insecurity in the oil and gas sector. “We must remove the security challenges in our onshore assets. It’s not just about theft; it’s about ensuring the availability of infrastructure to deliver oil to the market,” he said.
The NNPC has taken steps to address these challenges, including removing over 5,800 illegal connections from its pipelines and dismantling over 600 illegal refineries. Kyari expressed optimism that production will improve as the security situation improves.
The Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline project is also a critical component in creating the necessary infrastructure to ensure gas supply, Kyari added.
The remaining work to be done in connecting the east and west is a 2.7-kilometer river bridge, which is expected to be completed by the end of May or June, allowing gas to flow from east to west.
