Zero militancy, PIB, 2.8m barrels per day… the 7 Kachikwu ‘big wins’

President Muhammadu Buhari has eventually launched the #7BigWins initiative conceived by the Ibe Kachikwu-led ministry of petroleum resources.

Implementing the document its well-planned roadmap, unveiled by the president on Thursday, Nigeria can expect these seven things, over the next three years if followed to the letter:

‎Policy and Regulation: Reviewing of old and moribund policies, gazetting new policies and entranching robust fiscal instruments and regulations with key attention given to the passage of the Petroleum Industry Reform Bill.

Business Environment and Investment Drive:‎ The roadmap provides a workable plan which would ensure that adequate infrastructure is put in place to ramp up National crude oil production to target of about 2.8 million barrels per day, while contributing positively in the area of gas to power by boosting gas production to 10bscfd by 2019 respectively.

Transparency and Efficiency: Restructuring and revamping of the parastatals by instituting transparency and efficiency of all levels ‎of operations to drive profitability and accountability.

Stakeholder management and international coordination: Deploying a potent communication strategy and building and maintaining robust relationships with our stakeholders (within and outside the petroleum producing community)

Gas Revolution: Gas revolution through new infrastructure and gas terms that would encourage the roll out of national blueprint for backbone gas pipeline and processing infrastructure that will enable flexibility in supply delivery and provide a viable source of income for the country.

Refineries and Local Production Capacity: Upgrading of the nation’s refineries and increasing local production capacity with an objective to reduce importation of petroleum products by 60 per cent‎ in 2018 in the country, and by 2019‎ becaome a net exporter of petroleum products and value added petrochemicals.

Niger-Delta Security: The implementation of these wins is expected to increase government streams of incomes and ensure zero militancy in the Niger Delta as well as shutdowns by oil majors by mid 2017.

Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, while giving a breakdown of the Big Wins said it was time for Nigeria to take drastic steps to fix the sector.

“Our target is to have an incident reduction by 90 percent by 2018 and to target zero militancy and shut down by middle of 2017. Whatever shutdown experienced by middle of next year we expect it to be production slippages and not militancy issues. We must resolve current militancy problems and bring back production to 2.2 million barrels per day. We are currently at 1.8 million.

“We will like to begin the year once Exxon Mobil brings back their production this week with 2.2million barrels per day. But the reality is that 2.2 million barrels does not represent at all the capacity of this nation. We have the capacity to increase to three million barrels per day, the problem has been funding.

“We are working with the oil sector players to begin to find solutions to our cash call problems. We need to create stability incentive schemes, jobs and investment opportunities in the Niger Delta zone.

“We are looking to chat new frontiers especially with the Lake Chad basin. My vision is to encourage private sector to go into Lake Chad basin and find oil. We are targeting to raise over $5 billion in short term funds for this government and over $20 billion in medium to long term funds.

“We need to cut contractual times for average of two years to average of three to six months. We need to reduce government stronghold on the oil sector so that the private sector can flourish grow in leaps and bounds. We need to review our fiscal structure so that government is able to meet and participate in best practices all over the world”.

Kachikwu said for the oil refineries, government is targeting to  achieve 100 percent local refining capacity by 2020 and by 2018 the corporation hopes to stop importation of petroleum product and we will be very aggressive with this.