Nigeria’s crude oil production now 1.8m bpd, says NNPC

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited says Nigeria’s oil production has reached 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd).

According to NAN, Lawal Musa, NNPC chief production war room officer, spoke during a briefing on the national oil company’s production on Thursday.

Musa, who doubles as a senior business advisor to Mele Kyari, NNPC group chief executive officer (GCEO), said the increased oil production followed the continuous dislodgement of pipeline vandals and crude oil thieves.

He said the achievement was based on the partnership between the leadership of the company, stakeholders, and security agencies.

“We achieved this because of the clear mandate by President Bola Tinubu to ramp up crude oil production in the country,” Musa said.

He said the country’s gas production has been increased to 7.4 standard cubic feet per day (scfd).

Musa said the feat was accomplished through the collaborative efforts of joint venture (JV) and production sharing contract (PSC) partners, the office of the national security adviser, as well as government and private security agencies.

He said the measures that led to the recovery of production cut across every segment of the production chain with security agencies closely monitoring the pipelines.

According to the business adviser, when the production war room team was inaugurated on June 25, production was at “1.430mbpd, but the team swung into action, culminating into it sustaining the production recovery to 1.7 mbpd in August and hitting the current 1.808mbpd in November”.

“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 2 mbpd by the end of the year,” he said.

Speaking on the development, Kyari commended 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.

Also speaking on the development, Pius Akinyelure, chairman of the NNPC board of directors, said he was glad to be part of the production recovery process, adding that “today, I will leave this place with my heart full of joy”.

Akinyelure charged the company’s management to create a cash flow projection based on the new production figures to facilitate planning, adding that he was looking forward to further production increase to 3 million bpd.

On his part, Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for petroleum (oil), expressed satisfaction with the performance of the team and pledged the federal government’s support for the company’s future efforts.

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) on November 11 said Nigeria’s current production level, including crude oil and condensates, has reached 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd), up from 1.54 million bpd in September.

Enorense Amadasu, executive commissioner of development and production at NUPRC, said there are plans to raise the figure to 2 million bpd by year-end.

Amadasu said the country’s crude oil and condensate output is expected to increase amid a plan to open bids for 31 onshore and offshore oil blocks.

The next day, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said Nigeria’s average daily crude oil production, excluding condensates, increased marginally to 1.33 million bpd in October.