By Obas Esiedesa,ABUJA
Nigeria’s daily oil production in the month of July, 2023 fell by 13.6 per cent to average 1.08 million barrels per day compared to 1.25mbpd recorded in June, latest production data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, has indicated.
The latest production figure is a major setback for the government which has a production target of 1.69 million barrels per day in the 2023 budget. The volume of production is also significantly lower than the 1.7 million barrels per day production quota allocated to the country by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.
A closer look at the data released by NUPRC on Thursday also showed that blended and unblended condensate oil daily production in July were 38,258 barrels and 174,509 barrels respectively. Condensate oil productions are not part of Nigeria’s OPEC production requirement.
In total, daily average oil production in July was 1.29 million barrels per day, a 12.8 percent drop when compared to total average daily production of 1.48 million barrels in June.
The NNPC Limited had said it expects oil production to hit 1.8 million barrels per day by the fourth quarter of this year, as measures put in place to boost production begin to yield results.
Disclosing the new target in Abuja during a session at the recently concluded Nigeria Oil Gas Energy Week, the Executive Vice President, Upstream, Engr. Adokiye Tombomieye said the target is to first hit the 1.7mbpd mark at the end of the third quarter.
Tombomieye said the new production targets would be achieved through asset integrity, production ramp up, well interventions, new drillings, alternative crude oil evacuation and improved security architecture.
Providing specific details, Tombomieye who was represented by the Igandan Olanrewaju said: “We have resumed crude oil production in earlier challenged areas like OMLs 29, 18, and 24. We expect to ramp up to about 80,000bpd with our joint venture partners in Q3 2024. First oil to tank was achieved in NEPL, former NPDC OML 13 field of 25,000bpd and we expect to fully monitise that by the end of Q3 2023.
“Obodo field in OML 150 PSC is expected to bring up to about 20,000bpd in late Q4 2023. Development in OMLs 71 and 72 is expected to add about 20,000 to 30,000bpd to national production by late Q3 2023.
“Within the deep water space we are concluding the Aboe turn around maintenance which will bring back about 10,000bpd, additionally within OML 130 we are opening up two injector wells and we expect that that should bring up another 10,000bpd Q3 2023”, he added.
Tombomieye noted that upstream opportunities exist in the deep water space, explaining that NNPC Limited was working with its partners to achieve final investments on key major projects including the Bonga North field that would add 120,000bpd to national production.
He stressed that to achieve these targets a conducive investment climate was needed, adding that the new NNPC Limited structure “creates a level playing ground for investors”
Source: Vanguard
