NPDC Production Hits 102 Million Barrels Per Day

Chika Amanze-Nwachuku

9 June 2011

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC), has announced that crude production at its upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, (NPDC) has increased from 60,000 barrels per day to 102,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (90,000 barrels of oil per day plus 50 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas sales).

This comes as the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) failed to reach a formal decision on a production agreement at its 159th meeting in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday.

The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Corporation, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, disclosed in a statement Wednesday that the milestone was achieved based on the Federal Government’s support of NNPC/ NPDC transformation and growth strategy towards repositioning the Company within the next five years. According to him, noting this new aspiration wass designed to increase both NPDC reserves and production base to over 1.5billion barrels and 250,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2015 respectively. Ajuonuma stated that the strategic growth aspiration was bolstered by the expansion of NPDC operations via the assignment of equity interests especially in the IOC (SPDC/TOTA/NAOC) divesting blocks.

Under the arrangement, he said the International Oil Companies (IOCs) divested 45 per cent equity in OMLs 4, 38 and 41 to SEPLAT and NNPC subsequently assigned 55 per cent to its subsidiary NPDC to manage these assets.

The NNPC spokesman stated that the assignment of these three blocks resulted to current increase in reserve base of over 200 million barrels of oil and production uplift of 28,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (20,000 bbls/day of oil and 50 million standard cubic feet gas sales per day).

“NPDC’s expectation is to continue to increase production in these assigned blocks to about 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by year end 2011. The Company will continue to maintain this level of performance which will significantly surpass the subsidiary’s 2009 Annual General Report declaration of over N15 billion profit after tax,” Ajuonuma said.

” It is envisaged that in the years ahead, NPDC will continue to strive for operational excellence to increase its profitability and subsequently position itself as a major oil and gas player in Nigeria.

Ultimately, the NNPC Corporate expectation is to have similar assignments to NPDC to further strengthen and expedite the growth aspiration and position NPDC among its peers like Petrobras, Petronas etc as a major National Oil Company”.

Meanwhile, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) failed to reach a formal decision on a production agreement at its 159th meeting in Vienna, Austria, yesterday.

However, member countries resolved to abide by its longstanding commitment to order and stability in the international oil market.

The 160th Meeting of the Conference will take place on 14 December 2011 in Vienna, Austria.

AllAfrica – All the Time