Heirs Energies CEO: Nigeria can produce 2.5m bpd — but oil theft blocking investments

Heirs Energies Limited, operator of the oil mining lease (OML) 17, says theft is a major issue stifling investments in the industry.

Speaking in a recent interview with Financial Times, Osayande Igiehon, chief executive officer of Heirs Energies, said Nigeria can produce between 2 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) and 2.5 million bpd.

“Today, We are only able to produce somewhere in the range of 1.2 million bpd to 1.5 million bpd,” he said.

According to the Heirs Energies CEO, several issues including energy transition and lack of investments are causes of the declining oil production.

“There are causative factors but the biggest is the theft. The second challenge is then the point of investment,” he said.

“Because of the theft, it has created a scenario where there has been a stifling of investments in the sector.”

Igiehon said there is a global push for energy transition that “has made getting financing for oil and gas more challenging”. 

“We took over operational control from the previous operator in July 2021,” Igiehon said.

“We essentially doubled our oil production in 100 days from 27,000 barrels to 52,000 barrels per day.

“But we noticed very quickly that while we were trying to ramp up production, what was getting to the terminal was declining. In December of 2021, we only got 3 percent of our production at the terminal.”

Currently, he said the company gets an average of 85 percent of its production.

The Heirs Energies boss appreciated the government for the decisive steps they have taken to secure pipelines.