The Federal Government has disclosed it is finalizing plans to deal with the issue of oil theft, which forces Nigeria to lose $4 billion annually or 150,000 BPD.
This was disclosed in a Bloomberg interview with Gbenga Komolafe, CEO of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
He stated that Nigeria plans to increase its current production capacity to 3 million as it struggles to hit its OPEC production quota.
What Komolafe is saying about oil production
He said that Nigeria is currently losing “150,000 barrels of oil a day to criminals who illegally tap pipelines,” adding that at present price levels, the missing barrels are worth about $4 billion a year.
“Pretty soon you will see a reverse in that trend,” he said, declining to provide further details on the security strategy.
“We are actually targeting three million barrels a day,” he said, adding that such feat will require significant measures than a reduction in crude theft.
Nigeria pumped 500,000 fewer barrels a day than its capacity, as at November 2021, as oil earnings were just over half the government’s target in the first 11 months of 2021, with revenue of just N970 billion.
Komolafe said the FG is doing everything to get investors to get interested in making investments, citing that recent sales of marginal oil fields to domestic producers have shown they have the capacity to improve Nigeria’s production capacity.
In case you missed it
- Recall Nairametrics recently reported that Nigeria’s crude oil production grew by 50,000BPD in a month, from 1.41 million barrels a day average in December 2021 to 1.46 million barrels a day in January 2022, from a monthly output target of 1,683,000 BPD.
- Also to boost Nigeria’s upstream capacity, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Group announced financing of $5 billion with the African Export-Import Bank (AfreximBank), NNPC and Afreximbank team agreed during the meeting to intensify efforts at deepening investment in Nigeria’s oil sector, including the acquisition of interest in quality upstream oil and gas producing assets.