The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited has claimed to have achieved 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) crude oil production and 7.4 standard cubic feet per day (scfd) gas production in November.
The disclosure was made available by NNPC’s spokesperson, Olufemi Soneye, on Thursday, following a press briefing in Abuja.
The national oil company said it is also targeting about 2 million bpd by the end of the year.
What NNPC is Saying
Speaking at the press briefing, the Group CEO of NNPC, Mele Kyari, congratulated the Production War Room Team that anchored the production recovery process.
“The team has done a great job in driving this project of not just production recovery but also escalating production to expected levels that are in the short and long terms, acceptable to our shareholders based on the mandates that we have from the President, the Honourable Minister, and the Board,” Kyari said.
- On his part, the Senior Business Adviser to the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Lawal Musa, disclosed that the feat was achieved through the collaborative efforts of Joint Venture and Production Sharing Contract partners, the Office of the National Security Adviser, as well as government and private security agencies.
- He said the interventions that led to the recovery of production cut across every segment of the production chain with security agencies closely monitoring the pipelines.
“We are confident that with this same momentum and with the active collaboration of all stakeholders, especially on the security front, we can see the possibility of getting to 2mbpd by the end of the year,” he stated.
What You Should Know
NNPC’s claim of the production of 1.8 million bpd of crude oil comes a few days after OPEC released its monthly data, showing Nigeria’s crude output for October only grew to 1.43 million bpd.
- NNPC did not specify in its press briefing whether the crude output figure was inclusive of blended condensate and unblended condensate.
- While the November data from OPEC and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) is yet to be released, there is no independent data currently supporting NNPC’s claim that Nigeria is producing as high as 1.8 million bpd of crude oil.
- It is important to note that an increase in crude oil production would also mean an increase in foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria, which could help stabilize the local currency, the naira, which is yet to find its balance in the foreign exchange market.